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WB result: Split in minority votes cracks TMC bastions, fuels BJP surge in Muslim-majority districts

Kolkata, May 5 (PTI) In an election that has upended West Bengal’s entrenched political arithmetic, the BJP’s sweeping victory has drawn its decisive momentum not merely from traditional strongholds but from unexpected gains in Muslim-dominated districts, where a fractured minority vote quietly rewrote the script that had long favoured the TMC. For over a decade, the TMC’s dominance in districts such as Murshidabad, Malda and Uttar Dinajpur rested on a near-complete consolidation of Muslim votes, a bloc that accounts for 50 per cent or more of the population in large parts of this belt. That group, forged in the aftermath

Will of people supreme, says Mahua Moitra after BJP’s landslide victory in Bengal

Kolkata, May 5 (PTI) A day after the Trinamool Congress faced a drubbing by the BJP in the West Bengal assembly elections, TMC MP Mohua Moitra on Tuesday said her party respects the mandate as the will of the people is supreme. She also said that the party will continue the fight for a “secular country”. In a post on X, Moitra said, “The will of the people is supreme. If Bengal wanted BJP, then Bengal has got BJP. We respect that.” The BJP on Monday scripted history by winning 206 seats to secure more than a two-thirds majority in

India’s cash withdrawals surge 12% in first half of April; sustained trend may impact liquidity, economists say

MUMBAI, May 5 (Reuters) – Currency in circulation in India surged by over 610 billion rupees ($6.40 billion) in the first 15 days of April, pushing the total to a ​record 42.3 trillion rupees, and a sustained pattern could impact liquidity, economists said. The ‌spike, up 11.8% on-year and the highest since early 2017 after demonetisation, extends a rise in cash demand seen over the past six months and through the last financial year, central bank data showed. Currency ​demand had been “somewhat subdued” relative to GDP growth in recent years, setting the ​stage for a sharper rebound, helped by

Delimitation key factor for NDA’s landslide win in Assam

Guwahati, May 5 (PTI) The delimitation of constituencies to reduce the impact of minority candidates in their earlier strongholds is one among the many factors that led to the NDA’s stupendous performance in the Assam polls, securing a record win of 102 seats in the 126-member assembly. The 2023 delimitation exercise, which redrew and realigned constituencies with some earlier Muslim-majority seats getting reserved for indigenous communities, played a significant role in the increase of seats for the BJP and its allies in the just-concluded assembly polls. The minority votebank played a key role, particularly for the Congress and AIUDF, in

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