West Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya (PTI)

New Delhi: West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Sunday said the party has not decided on its chief ministerial face for the poll-bound state and will instead seek votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.BJP’s move to field Chief Minister and Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee Speculations have intensified about his being the chief opposition party’s CM candidate from Bhabanipur constituency.Former TMC leader Adhikari, who joined BJP before the 2021 assembly elections, is also contesting from his stronghold Nandigram. In 2021, he defeated Banerjee in Nandigram by a slim margin of around 2,000 votes; Later she returned to the Assembly by winning the by-election from Bhabanipur and retained the post of Chief Minister.TMC has repeatedly portrayed the BJP as a party of “outsiders”, a narrative that has worked to the ruling party’s advantage.“The BJP does not project anyone as the chief ministerial candidate. In Delhi and Haryana, whom did the BJP project as the face? We did not. Yet we won. Same thing happened in Odisha. Who did we project as the face? We did not contest those elections with any one face,” he told PTI.In Haryana, the BJP has incumbent Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini in the running for the October 2024 elections. Saini, who had succeeded party colleague Manohar Lal Khattar in March that year, retained the top post even after the party won for the third consecutive time by defeating the Congress.The BJP formed its first government in Odisha in June 2024 and returned to power in Delhi after nearly 30 years in February last year. In both places, it did not project any CM face, with Mohan Charan Majhi in Odisha and Rekha Gupta in Delhi being the post-poll choices.However, Rajya Sabha MP Bhattacharya kept a small window open, saying the party’s top leadership was free to take a “different decision” later.He said, “If, in the next few days, they (top BJP leaders) decide to choose someone and fight under that person, then it will be their decision. But at the moment, there is no such decision and I don’t think it will happen. We fight the elections by putting forward the ‘development man’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom people trust from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and seek votes based on faith in his vision.”Bhattacharya also expressed confidence that the BJP would secure a “comfortable majority”, although he declined to give numbers or say whether it would be able to cross the two-thirds mark.In 2021, the BJP recorded its best-ever tally with 77 seats, up from just three in 2016, but fell well short of its target of 200.On the other hand, Banerjee, who has been in power since 2011, led TMC to its third consecutive victory by winning 215 seats in the 294-member assembly.Voting will be held in West Bengal on April 23 and 29 and counting of votes will take place on May 4.

New Delhi: A 15-year-old girl, who was stabbed in Northeast Delhi’s Seemapuri on Friday, died at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital on Saturday morning. The accused, a 24-year-old man, died in a gas cylinder explosion at his nearby residence on Friday evening, soon after the incident. The girl was declared dead in the hospital at around 6 am. Outside her house, family members recalled that she had stepped out to buy medicines from a nearby shop when she was attacked. Crying her grandmother repeated: “Just left after saying 5 minutes, haven’t returned yet.”His uncle further told TOI that he was bleeding for more than 20 minutes before help arrived. “The anger and brutality with which she was stabbed is unbelievable. She was stabbed more than a dozen times,” he said. The teenager had recently appeared for the Class 10 board exams and was waiting for her results.“We were all waiting for his results. We were very optimistic about his future,” he said. He said residents now fear for their safety after the murder. Friends and family remembered him as a man who was loved for his kindness. His aunt said, “We don’t know why someone would want to hurt him. We haven’t been told about any clear motive yet.” The girl’s family consists of her grandmother, mother, father and her younger sister. At the man’s residence, about 2 km away, relatives claimed he blew himself up to die by suicide. He described him as an introvert. The person worked as a delivery executive in an e-commerce company. His mother said, “He never mentioned anything about a girl or any mental health problems, including depression or anger. He mostly kept to himself.”

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It is believed that the man was home alone when the explosion occurred. His mother was at work. His father had died 11 months ago.Relatives expressed disbelief at the turn of events. His aunt said, “Even if he were alive and went to jail, he would still be alive for his mother. He has no one else.” While both the families denied knowing each other, a senior police officer said, “Both knew each other and were acquaintances. Both families were aware.” However, the exact motive is being investigated. The two reportedly had a telephone conversation before the incident.Another officer said, ‘They knew each other since the man’s aunt was a neighbor near the girl’s house two years ago.’ He confirmed that the man was believed to have carried out the blast himself. While the girl’s uncle alleged that several people, allegedly drunk, were involved in stabbing her multiple times, the officer refuted the claim and said only one person was visible in the CCTV footage at the spot.

Nagpur: A gesture of “goodwill” on the roadside turned into murder. Three engineering students, who had earlier offered to help a drunk driver, allegedly killed him hours later to grab his red Alto car and phone. Police said on Saturday that the trio found Suchit Bhojpure, a 44-year-old spare parts supplier, slipping on the steering wheel of his car on a flyover in Vardhaman Nagar in East Nagpur area late on Thursday night. They offered to park his vehicle safely.Bhojpure, who was heavily intoxicated, allegedly asked the trio – 22-year-old Aryan Shende, 20-year-old Rishabh Kamble and 19-year-old Anuj Ramesh – to drive him. What started as aid turned into a long journey — first a delivery run to Bhiwapur, a city southeast of Nagpur, and then to his home near Baba Trimurti Nagar in Wadi, on the city’s western outskirts.A phone call to his wife changed the course of the night, police said. She first asked them to bring her home, then reacted angrily when told they had reached a locked house, and questioned why they brought her “drunken husband” back. Investigators said this exchange led students to believe the man was “obnoxious.”Greed took over. The trio allegedly decided to kill Bhojapure and keep his car for themselves, planning to change its number plate and colour, police said. They allegedly went to an isolated place near a crematorium on Khadgaon Road in Wadi, dragged him outside and broke his skull with stones. Her body was stripped and thrown into the bushes to hinder identification. Police said the students fled with the car and two expensive mobile phones.Bhojapure’s father Upasrao had filed a missing complaint. The body was found on Friday morning. Crime branch teams led by senior inspector Dnyaneshwar Bhedodkar along with senior officers Vasant Pardeshi, Rahul Maknikar and Abhijeet Patil solved the case within 12 hours. CCTV footage, technical surveillance and call records pointed towards Aryan, who had contacted Bhojapure’s wife. Aryan, who was picked up from a college campus in Nandanvan in East Nagpur, reportedly confessed to his crime. Police said blood stains on the shoes undermined initial denials. The rest were soon arrested.All three have been charged with murder and have been sent to police custody.