-The Indian Express Potato is cultivated on almost four lakh acres of land in West Bengal between December and March, with about 10 lakh farmers growing the crop. Hooghly: With West Bengal in the midst of a polarising election season, farmers in the state’s potato belt of Hooghly and parts of Purba Bardhaman say their cries for help are getting drowned out in the din of a high-decibel poll campaign. Potato is cultivated...

-The Indian Express A 50-kg bag of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), the most widely consumed fertiliser in India after urea, will cost farmers Rs 1,900, more than 58 per cent higher than the existing rate of Rs 1,200/bag. In the midst of Assembly elections in West Bengal and ongoing protests against the Centre’s farm laws, the country’s largest fertiliser seller – Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) – has steeply raised prices of nutrients. A...

-The Hindu Mamata Banerjee’s assumption that Bengali nationalism could block anti-incumbency and Hindutva may be optimistic The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is a unique specimen in understanding anti-incumbency. Welfare schemes that usually make incumbents popular have added to the anti-incumbency woes of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the workers of her party made those the easy and only option for rent-seeking. ‘Cut money’, or the cut for TMC local...

-The Hindu Labourers from West Bengal, Assam have gone home to exercise their franchise Kochi: Kabir Ahmad (name changed), a migrant worker in Perumbavoor, had to spend a small fortune on a flight ticket to return home to Hojai district of Assam last month following his parents’ anguished plea to get back in time for voting. Their desperation was borne out of the perceived danger posed to the community by the National...

-The Indian Express The anti-incumbency Banerjee faces is as much about local-level corruption and competing ideologies as it is about stalled industrialisation, weak credit growth, a near-freeze in new jobs, low infrastructure development and agriculture spend. AS West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee fights perhaps her most significant electoral battle, framing her contest is not just BJP vs Trinamool politics — but the state’s economics as well. The anti-incumbency Banerjee faces is as...