Chennai, May 19: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has cautioned the Vijay-led TVK government against seeking the support of a faction of AIADMK legislators, stating that such a move would force the party to reconsider its backing to the government.

Addressing reporters at Tiruthuraipoondi on Tuesday, CPI(M) State secretary P. Shanmugam said the people of Tamil Nadu had delivered a verdict against both the DMK and the AIADMK, and any attempt by the TVK government to rely on support from an AIADMK faction would go against the public mandate.

He said such a political arrangement would also contradict TVK’s promise of providing clean and transparent governance.

Mr. Shanmugam expressed hope that TVK would not enter into any alliance or understanding with the AIADMK. However, he said the CPI(M) would be compelled to review its support to the government if such a decision was taken.

Explaining the party’s decision to support the TVK government, the CPI(M) leader said Tamil Nadu was not prepared for another round of elections. He also stated that the party did not want the BJP to gain entry into the State through the imposition of Governor’s rule.

He said these considerations had prompted the CPI(M) to extend support to the TVK government.

Dhaka/Chittagong, May 19: A protocol officer working at the Indian mission in Bangladesh was found dead on Tuesday morning in Chittagong, according to local police officials.

The deceased was identified as Naren Dhar, who was serving as a protocol officer at the Assistant High Commission of India in Chittagong.

Police said the body was recovered from the premises following information received earlier in the day. The body was later shifted to the mortuary of Chittagong Medical College Hospital for post-mortem examination.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Aminur Rashid said the exact cause of death was yet to be determined and authorities were awaiting the post-mortem report.

Investigators are examining whether the death was due to natural causes or if there were any suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident.

The incident comes amid continued diplomatic engagement between India and Bangladesh.

GUWAHATI, May 12: Himanta Biswa Sarma was sworn in as Chief Minister of Assam for the second consecutive term on Tuesday, following a decisive victory by the National Democratic Alliance in the recently concluded state assembly elections. The oath-taking ceremony was held at the Veterinary College Field in Guwahati.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Minister Nara Lokesh, several senior Union Ministers, and NDA chief ministers and deputy chief ministers from across the country attended the ceremony.

Along with Sarma, four cabinet ministers were also administered the oath of office on Tuesday. The ministerial berths were distributed among NDA constituent parties — the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Asom Gana Parishad and the Bodoland People's Front. Atul Bora of the Asom Gana Parishad, Charan Boro of the Bodoland People's Front, and Rameshwar Teli and Ajanta Neog of the BJP took oath as ministers in the new cabinet.

The NDA's emphatic performance in the Assam assembly elections, winning 81 of the 126 seats, paved the way for the alliance to return to power in the northeastern state for a third consecutive term — a feat that underscores the consolidation of the ruling coalition's political base in the region.

Sarma, who first assumed office as Chief Minister in 2021, has been the dominant face of BJP's political expansion in the northeast. His return to power with a strengthened mandate is widely seen as an endorsement of his administration's governance record over the past term.

The swearing-in ceremony witnessed a significant gathering of NDA leadership from across the country, reflecting the alliance's solidarity and the national importance accorded to the BJP's continued hold over Assam, one of the key states in India's northeastern corridor.

CHANDIGARH: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted late-night raids at the Punjab Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali on Monday, arresting several alleged middlemen on charges of collecting bribes on behalf of a senior official, authorities said on Tuesday.

According to an official statement, the raids were carried out past midnight as part of an ongoing investigation into bribery transactions estimated at approximately ₹20 lakh. The middlemen were found to be operating from within the premises of the state's own anti-corruption body, lending the case a particularly pointed irony.

Official Absconding, Not Responding to Calls

While the arrested middlemen have been provided police protection by the Punjab government, the senior Vigilance Bureau official on whose behalf the bribes were allegedly being collected remains at large. Authorities confirmed that the officer has been unreachable and is not responding to phone calls, raising concerns about a possible attempt to evade investigators.

AAP Minister Already in ED Custody

The fresh arrests come at a time of mounting legal pressure on the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab. AAP Industries Minister Sanjeev Arora is already in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with separate money laundering allegations, compounding the political difficulties confronting the state administration.

The CBI is expected to intensify its probe in the days ahead, with sources indicating that the arrested middlemen are being questioned to establish the full chain of the alleged bribery network.

CHENNAI: The principal opposition party in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK, suffered a significant split on Tuesday as Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament C.V. Shanmugam, along with a group of senior leaders, broke away from the party and extended their support to Chief Minister Thalapathy Vijay's newly formed government.

The development came in the wake of the assembly election results and marks one of the more dramatic political realignments in the state since the new government assumed office.

A Fracture Long in the Making

Political observers noted that the split had been anticipated for some time, with speculation of disaffection within AIADMK ranks having been in circulation for several days. The formal defection of Shanmugam — a prominent face of the party in the Upper House of Parliament — lends the rupture a significance that goes beyond mere numbers, striking at the credibility and organisational cohesion of the Edappadi K. Palaniswami-led outfit.

Post-Poll Turbulence

Tamil Nadu's political landscape has been in a state of flux since the declaration of assembly election results, with the formation of the Vijay-led government having set off a series of realignments and recalibrations across party lines. The latest development is widely seen as a reflection of the gravitational pull that the new dispensation is beginning to exert on opposition legislators and leaders disillusioned with their respective parties.

Further defections from the AIADMK are not being ruled out by analysts tracking the fast-evolving situation in the state.

CHENNAI: In one of his first and most consequential decisions as Chief Minister, Thalapathy Vijay on Tuesday ordered the closure of 717 liquor shops operating in violation of regulations across Tamil Nadu, directing that all such outlets be shut down within a fortnight. The order came on just the third day of his assuming office, signalling the new government's intent to prioritise public health and social welfare.

The directive covers shops run under the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC), which currently operates 4,765 liquor outlets across the state. Of these, 717 have been identified by officials as functioning in contravention of established norms and are to be shuttered within 14 days.

Proximity to Sensitive Locations Cited

The closures are primarily targeted at outlets situated within 500 metres of schools, colleges, places of worship including temples, churches and mosques, as well as areas with heavy pedestrian and commuter traffic. The Chief Minister underscored that the decision was taken out of respect for public health, the future of students and the sentiments of pilgrims and devotees.

A Statement of Intent

Political observers noted that the swiftness of the decision — coming within 72 hours of the oath-taking ceremony — was a deliberate signal from the Vijay-led administration of its priorities. The move is expected to resonate strongly among voters in semi-urban and rural constituencies where liquor shops in the vicinity of educational institutions and religious centres have long been a source of public grievance.

Further policy measures on the liquor trade are widely anticipated as the new government consolidates its footing in the weeks ahead.

NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday announced the cancellation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2026, conducted on May 3, following a massive controversy over the alleged leakage of the question paper in Rajasthan. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been directed to probe the paper leak, as protests erupted across the country with students and parents demanding accountability.

The NTA said fresh examination dates would be announced shortly, assuring candidates that re-registration and payment of fees would not be required. Admit cards, it added, would be re-issued once the new schedule is finalised.

Practice Paper Matches Original by 600 Marks

The controversy was triggered by allegations that a coaching centre in Rajasthan had provided students a practice paper nearly 48 hours before the examination, questions from which reportedly matched those in the original NEET paper to the tune of 600 marks. Rajasthan Additional Director General of Police Vishal Bansal and Special Operations Group (SOG) officials confirmed the recovery of a practice paper containing over 120 Chemistry questions that bore a striking resemblance to those in the actual examination. Notably, the sequence of answers in several questions was found to be identical, deepening suspicions of a pre-meditated leak.

WhatsApp Trail Leads to Kerala

Investigators found that the material had surfaced on WhatsApp in Sikar, Rajasthan, approximately 42 hours before the examination. The practice paper was traced to an MBBS student enrolled at a medical college in Kerala, who allegedly shared it with a friend in Sikar on May 1. From there, the material spread rapidly through a network of paying guest accommodations, coaching institutes, career counsellors and aspirants.

The leaked material reportedly contained over 300 handwritten questions covering Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Police officials said the material was sold to students for amounts ranging from ₹20,000 to ₹2 lakh, with some candidates having paid upwards of ₹30,000 in advance. Several suspects have already been taken into custody in connection with the case.

NTA Cites Integrity of Examination System

Defending the decision to cancel the examination, the NTA stated that the move was necessitated by the need to protect the interests of students and preserve public confidence in the national examination framework. The agency reiterated its commitment to ensuring a fair and transparent re-examination at the earliest.

Over 73,000 Aspirants from Telangana Affected

The cancellation has left over 73,000 students from Telangana alone in a state of uncertainty, having applied for the examination that serves as the sole gateway to admissions into MBBS and BDS programmes across the country. The development has renewed demands for a thorough overhaul of the examination conduct and oversight mechanisms.

Amaravati, May 6: In what has emerged as one of the most remarkable electoral coincidences in recent Tamil Nadu political history, a DMK Minister has lost the Tirupattur Assembly constituency by a single vote — the precise margin that the BJP's election incharge for the segment had repeatedly predicted months before polling day.

Kokker Srinivas, a BJP leader from Andhra Pradesh appointed by the party's national leadership as election incharge for the Tirupattur Assembly constituency, had taken up residence in the segment from March 6 onwards, conducting an intensive campaign across all seven mandals of the constituency for 45 consecutive days until April 25.

Throughout this period, Srinivas consistently emphasised a single, unwavering message to party workers, booth-level functionaries, and allied party cadres alike: that one vote could alter political destiny.

"One vote changes political fate," he told gatherings across the constituency. "One vote decides victory. This one vote can change history." The message was repeated not merely as a rhetorical device, but as a strategic directive — workers were mobilised with the explicit understanding that no vote could be treated as inconsequential.

The same message was carried to meetings of the National Democratic Alliance partners in the constituency, including the AIADMK and the AMMK, where Srinivas elaborated the point with historical examples of razor-thin electoral outcomes.

When results came, the words acquired new weight

When votes were counted on May 4, the outcome at Tirupattur confounded observers across the political spectrum. The TVK candidate prevailed over the sitting DMK Minister by a margin of exactly one vote — a result described by election analysts as virtually without precedent in Tamil Nadu's electoral history.

The coincidence was not lost on BJP workers who had sat through those pre-election meetings.

"When he said it then, we took it as motivational talk," admitted a senior BJP functionary in Tirupattur. "But he said it so clearly, so many times — only now do we realise the full significance of what he was telling us."

A question of political foresight

The episode has since sparked considerable discussion across party lines in Tirupattur and beyond — not merely about the extraordinary result itself, but about the degree to which the BJP's national apparatus had assessed ground realities in the constituency with precision.

Whether the repeated emphasis on a single-vote margin reflected a precise reading of the constituency's electoral arithmetic, or whether it was a general motivational strategy that happened to align with an extraordinary outcome, remains a matter of conjecture. What is beyond dispute, however, is that the phrase "one vote" has acquired an entirely new resonance in Tirupattur's political lexicon.

The result has drawn wide coverage across print and electronic media, with analysts examining both the mechanics of the recount process and the broader implications of such a narrow verdict in a constituency where a Cabinet Minister was the incumbent.

For the BJP, whose candidate was not the eventual winner, the episode has nonetheless provided an unexpected moment of political vindication — the party's meticulous booth-level mobilisation and the incharge's insistent messaging are now being cited within its ranks as evidence of sound ground-level intelligence.

The Tirupattur constituency result is currently under scrutiny, with legal and procedural processes expected to follow given the unprecedented margin.

NEW DELHI, April 18: Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a sharp attack on the Opposition on Friday, expressing outrage over the defeat of key legislation related to women's reservations in the Lok Sabha and accusing the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and Samajwadi Party of collectively undermining women's empowerment.

Taking to the social media platform X, Mr. Shah said it was shameful that the Opposition parties were celebrating the defeat of a Bill that would have strengthened women's political representation. "This is not the first time Congress and its allies have done this. They have consistently adopted the same stance on critical issues concerning national development and women's empowerment," he said.

The Home Minister asserted that the Congress had no genuine interest in national development, women's rights, or empowerment, and that all the parties that had voted against the Bill had together betrayed Indian women who had been fighting for their rights for decades.

Mr. Shah warned that the Opposition would face a decisive political response from the women of India in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. "The women of this country will give a fitting answer to the parties that opposed the Women's Reservation Bill," he said, adding that no political force could afford to take women's aspirations lightly.

The 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill, which sought to fast-track the implementation of the one-third reservation for women in legislative bodies, was defeated in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after the ruling National Democratic Alliance failed to secure the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment. Of the 528 members who participated in the division vote, 298 supported the Bill while 230 voted against it, leaving the government 54 votes short of the required 352.

NEW DELHI, April 18: The Central government's ambitious attempt to fast-track the implementation of women's reservations in legislative bodies suffered a significant setback on Thursday when the 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment.

Of the 528 members who participated in the division voting, 298 voted in favour of the Bill while 230 voted against it. The Bill required 352 votes for passage, and with the ruling National Democratic Alliance failing to bridge a gap of 54 votes, Speaker Om Birla officially declared the Bill defeated.

Following the defeat, the Central government also withdrew two related pieces of legislation — proposals pertaining to amendments to Union Territory laws and delimitation. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju made the announcement in the House.

BJP members, incensed by the outcome, staged a dharna outside Parliament in protest.

Early implementation of women's quota was the objective

The 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill had been introduced with the specific aim of reducing the long wait for the women's reservation law to come into force. Parliament had already passed the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act — the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam — in 2023 with unanimous support. However, that legislation contains a provision linking its implementation to the completion of a fresh census and subsequent delimitation exercise, effectively pushing enforcement to 2029 or later.

To circumvent this delay, the Central government proposed expanding the Lok Sabha's strength from the current 543 seats to 850, and carving out a dedicated women's quota within this expanded House without disturbing existing SC, ST, and general category seats.

Three days of special sessions, 21 hours of debate

The Bills had been introduced in the House on April 16 following three days of special sessions convened specifically for the purpose. Deliberations stretched over 21 hours, with sharp exchanges between the treasury and opposition benches. A particularly heated confrontation took place between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Opposition, particularly parties representing southern States, raised strong objections, contending that the delimitation exercise as proposed carried the risk of reducing parliamentary representation for States in the south. They argued that delimitation should be undertaken only after a caste census, maintaining that social justice could not be achieved otherwise.

Amit Shah assures 50 per cent seat increase for all States

Responding to concerns about regional imbalance, Mr. Shah gave categorical assurances on the floor of the House that seats in every State would be increased by at least 50 per cent and that no State would be disadvantaged. He urged members not to divide the country along north-south lines, asserting that all States enjoyed equal rights under the Constitution.

In a significant gesture, Mr. Shah offered to formally amend the Bill on the spot if members felt the 50 per cent guarantee was not explicitly stated. "Give me one hour and I will incorporate it as an official amendment," he declared.

Had the Bill cleared the Lok Sabha, it would have proceeded to the Rajya Sabha for consideration. With its defeat at the first stage, the government's bid to advance the timeline for women's reservations has, for now, come to a halt. The Centre is yet to indicate its next course of action.

Special Parliament session from April 16 to take up Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam amendments; BJP issues three-line whip

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to the floor leaders of both Houses of Parliament on Sunday, calling upon members across party lines to unite in support of amendment bills linked to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, and declared that the women's reservation quota would come into effect from the 2029 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The Central government has extended the ongoing Budget Session by three days, with a special sitting of both Houses scheduled from April 16 to 18 for the purpose.

In his letter, Mr. Modi said the time had come to implement the women's reservation law in its true spirit, and that his government had decided to fast-track the legislation after extensive consultations. He urged all Members of Parliament to participate in what he described as a historic debate beginning April 16. "If the Women's Reservation Act comes into effect from 2029, India's democratic institutions will gain new strength, public trust in them will deepen, and participation and representation in governance will increase," he wrote.

The Prime Minister recalled that reservation for women in legislatures had remained a matter of discussion for several decades, but his government had enacted the law as early as 2023. He described the day of the Bill's passage as an inspiring milestone in India's parliamentary history, witnessed by the entire world. He called upon MPs of all parties to come together in the special session and usher in historic change.

Three-Line Whip Issued

The BJP issued a three-line whip to its members in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Sunday, directing them to be present without fail for the duration of the three-day special session and not to avail any leave during the period. The party asked its MPs to strictly comply with the whip and extend full cooperation in ensuring the passage of the amendment bills.

Two Key Amendments Proposed

The government is learnt to be considering two significant amendments during the special session. The first relates to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, which currently stipulates that women's reservations can be implemented only after a fresh census and delimitation exercise — a condition that would have pushed implementation to 2034. The proposed amendment seeks to delink the law from the requirement of a fresh census, enabling reservations to be implemented on the basis of the 2011 census data from the 2029 elections onwards.

The second proposed amendment pertains to the delimitation law. Rather than carving out 33 per cent of existing seats for women — which would reduce the number of seats available to male legislators — the government is understood to be considering an expansion of the total number of seats in Parliament and State Assemblies. Reports indicate that the number of Lok Sabha constituencies could be increased from the present 543 to 816, which would result in 273 seats being reserved for women from 2029. A proportionate increase in seats in State Assemblies is also being considered on the same basis.