Here are the top 5 news stories of the day:

Nitin Nabin takes charge as BJP national president; PM Modi calls him ‘my boss’

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nitin Nabin took charge as the party’s new national president. Addressing the gathering at the inauguration, PM Modi described himself as a “party worker” and said, “When it comes to the party, Nitin Nabin is my boss.” The 45-year-old leader from Bihar became the BJP’s youngest-ever national president, succeeding Jagat Prakash Nadda. Read full story

Trump threatens 200% tariff on French wine; shares Macron’s private text

US President Donald Trump issued a sharp warning to French President Emmanuel Macron, threatening to impose a 200 per cent tariff on French wine and champagne after Paris declined to join the board of peace. Trump also shared a screenshot of a message from Macron proposing a G7 meeting, with Ukraine and Denmark invited, to discuss issues including disagreements over Greenland. Read full story

Noida techie death: Police arrest builder over alleged construction negligence

Police arrested Abhay Kumar, the builder and owner of MZ Wiztown, in connection with the death of 27-year-old software engineer Yuvraj Mehta. Kumar was taken into custody by Knowledge Park police from Sector 150. According to police, the arrest relates to alleged negligence at a construction site linked to the incident. He will be produced before a court as per legal procedure. Read full story

TN governor RN Ravi walks out of assembly, cites disrespect to national anthem

Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi walked out of the state Assembly without delivering his inaugural address, alleging disrespect to the national anthem and claiming his mic was switched off. “I am disappointed. The national anthem was not given due respect,” he said. Reacting, CM Stalin accused the governor of “walking out yet again in violation of rules, traditions and ethos.” Read full story

Stock market crash: Sensex plunges 1,066 points, Nifty slides 353

Indian equity benchmarks Nifty50 and BSE Sensex fell sharply, sliding in the latter half of the session amid heavy selling. Technology stocks led the decline as mixed earnings signals, global trade uncertainties triggered by US President Donald Trump, and continued foreign investor outflows dented market sentiment. The Nifty50 closed at 25,232.50, down 353 points, while the BSE Sensex ended at 82,180.47, shedding 1,066 points or 1.28%.Read full story

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday doubled down on his government’s ambition to detect and deport illegal immigrants in the country, while strongly criticising the political parties “protecting or covering up for illegal immigrants for the sake of vote bank politics”.Addressing the party workers after the new BJP chief Nitin Nabin took charge, PM Modi said: “Illegal immigrants pose a great threat to the country’s security. Identifying them and sending them back to their countries is absolutely essential.”

“No country in the world accepts illegal immigrants. India, too, cannot allow illegal immigrants to steal the rights of our poor and our youth. Illegal immigrants pose a great threat to the country’s security. Identifying them and sending them back to their countries is absolutely essential,” PM Modi said during an address at the BJP headquarters.Without naming any political party, but in an apparent attack on Trinamool Congress (TMC), which rules the poll-bound West Bengal, PM Modi lashed out at parties “covering up for illegal immigrants” and said: “We must expose them to the public”.PM Modi also said the world doesn’t question the “wealthiest and most powerful countries” when they crack down on illegal immigrants.“Even the world’s wealthiest and most powerful countries are investigating and apprehending illegal immigrants within their borders and deporting them. And the world doesn’t question them, asking, “Why are you deporting these illegal immigrants? You were waving the flag of democracy. You were acting like the rulers of the world, so why are you doing this?” PM Modi said.‘Urban Naxalism a major challenge’Stepping up his offensive against the BJP’s nemesis, PM Modi said another major challenge is “urban Naxalism”, the scope of which he said has become “international”.The Prime Minister said that the “urban Naxals isolated the BJP” and treated the party like “untouchables throughout the country,” adding he said urban Naxals are “continuously working to harm India”.“Another major challenge is urban Naxalism. The scope of urban Naxalism is becoming international. If they tweet something positive about Modi even once or twice a year, or say something positive on TV, or write something positive in a newspaper, some journalists humiliate them so much that they are hounded and made untouchable. They are silenced so that they can never speak again. This is the method of urban Naxalism,” PM Modi said. The PM further said: “For years, they isolated the BJP and treated us like untouchables throughout the country. Now the country is understanding the actions of these urban Naxals. Urban Naxals are continuously working to harm India.”

Driven by curiosity and a human interest lens, Amisha is dedicated to impactful storytelling. She has navigated a wide range of beats over time, including environment, gender, youth affairs, heritage, and closely tracks the lives and migration of Indian diaspora. Her reporting has sparked public dialogue, with several stories cited in court proceedings and acted upon,  creating impact both locally and nationally.Read More

When results from Maharashtra’s long-delayed civic polls came on January 16, it became clear that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has made it to the top once again. The BJP swept 1,425 of 2,869 seats across 29 municipal corporations, a strike rate of nearly 50%. In Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), a Shiv Sena citadel for 25 years, slipped out of regional control.Since 2014, the BJP’s rise has not dismantled regional politics outright. Instead, it has steadily shrunk the space in which regional parties operate, limiting their ability to convert votes into seats, state power into national leverage and identity politics into a sustained election issue. Let’s take a look at how that containment has unfolded, state by state.

Maharashtra

Recent civic polls in Maharashtra offer a clear snapshot of regional parties containment in action.In the January 2026 civic elections, the BJP emerged as the single largest party across major urban bodies. In Mumbai’s BMC, it won 89 of 227 wards on its own. With ally Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena adding another 29, the ruling Mahayuti crossed the majority mark. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) was reduced to 65 seats, down from more than 130 in 2017.

Across the state, the picture was bleaker for regional forces. In Pune Municipal Corporation, the BJP crossed 110 seats, while the combined strength of the two Pawars – Sharad and Ajit Pawar – remained in double digits. Pimpri-Chinchwad, another Nationalist Congress Party bastion, delivered 87 seats to the BJP.These civic polls were delayed for nearly nine years due to legal and administrative hurdles.The BJP framed its campaign around the idea of a “triple-engine sarkaar”, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre and Devendra Fadnavis at the state level. Welfare schemes such as ‘Majhi Ladki Bahin’ found traction among women voters, while youth backing was decisive: nearly 47% of voters aged 18–25 reportedly favoured the BJP. But the most decisive factor was political fragmentation. The 2022 Shiv Sena split turned Shinde into a BJP ally, hollowing out the party’s organisational spine. The 2023 NCP fracture left Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar competing for the same shrinking base. Even Uddhav Thackeray’s tactical alliance with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) split Marathi identity votes in dozens of wards, indirectly benefiting the BJP.

Bihar

In Bihar, the regional parties have not been eliminated, but absorbed and subordinated within a BJP-led political framework.In 2025 Bihar assembly elections, the NDA won over 200 of 243 seats, its most decisive victory in the state in decades. Within that, the BJP emerged as the single largest party, overtaking chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) in numerical strength for the first time. Seat data underlined the altered balance of power.The BJP secured 89 seats, while JD(U) followed with 85 seats. Smaller allies such as the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Morcha added to the NDA tally. In contrast, the opposition collapsed. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, which had won 75 seats in 2020, was reduced to roughly 25 seats, while the Congress slipped to single digits.For regional parties in Bihar, this was not merely a defeat. It was a reordering.Nitish Kumar retained the chief ministership, but the arithmetic left little ambiguity. Power within the alliance now flows from the BJP outward, not the other way around. JD(U), once the pivot of Bihar politics and a perennial kingmaker in Delhi, now operates within limits defined by its larger partner.The RJD’s trajectory is equally telling. Tejashwi Yadav’s party got the highest vote share of 23% in the elections: BJP – 20.08%, JD(U) – 19.25%. Despite retaining a loyal base among Muslims and Yadavs, the vote share did not translate into seats. Welfare schemes, infrastructure expansion and caste-neutral messaging from the NDA fractured older social coalitions. Bihar results show a crucial feature of the BJP’s containment strategy: regional parties are allowed to survive, but not to dominate. Containment here does not mean extinction.It means subordination — a shift from being the senior partner to alliance dependents in a political order anchored firmly by the BJP.

Uttar Pradesh

In India’s most populous state, the BJP’s containment strategy has played out through electoral arithmetic. In 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA won 64 of 80 seats. On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, despite being opposition in the 2022 assembly with 111 of 403 seats, struggled to expand its footprint. The Bahujan Samaj Party, once a pivotal force, was reduced to near irrelevance, winning just one seat.Vote shares tell a revealing story. BJP got around 36% vote share in 2024, while Samajwadi part got near 29%.

This gap was widened by welfare politics. Schemes such as PM Awas Yojana, free rations and direct benefit transfers helped the BJP get more votes.Construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya also helped consolidate Hindu votes across caste.

West Bengal: a fortress with shrinking margins

The Trinamool Congress remains dominant in West Bengal, but the BJP is up for the challenge.In the 2021 assembly elections, TMC won 213 of 294 seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it retained 29 of 42 seats, getting around 45% of vote share. The BJP, however, consolidated itself as the principal challenger, holding roughly 23% of the vote share. The trajectory matters. BJP’s vote share surged from 18% in 2019 to nearly 38% in the 2021 assembly polls, driven by defections, organisational expansion and polarised campaigning. While welfare schemes such as Lakshmir Bhandar helped TMC stabilise its base, urban Kolkata and tribal belts like Jangalmahal saw growing BJP penetration.Mamata Banerjee remains powerful within the state. But will she continue to enjoy this power for log? We will know in a few months as Bengal votes for its next assembly.

Delhi: the fall of a regional experiment

The 2025 Delhi assembly elections marked a turning point.The BJP won 48 of 70 seats, ending a decade of rule by the Aam Aadmi Party and reclaiming the capital after nearly 27 years. AAP’s vote share remained competitive, but BJP’s organisational depth, candidate spread and campaign scale ensured superior seat conversion.For AAP, the loss was existential. Once projected as a governance-driven alternative with national ambitions, it now faces questions about relevance beyond Punjab. Delhi’s verdict showed that even a high-visibility regional model can be overwhelmed by a national party’s machinery.

Odisha and Andhra Pradesh: Swift reversals

Odisha saw one of the sharpest collapses. In 2019, the Biju Janata Dal won 113 of 147 assembly seats. By 2024, BJP swept 20 of 21 Lok Sabha seats and won 78 assembly seats, ending Naveen Patnaik’s long rule. Leadership vacuum and BJP’s appropriation of Odia identity accelerated the fall.In Andhra Pradesh, the YSR Congress Party’s dominance evaporated in 2024, when a TDP-BJP-JSP alliance won 135 of 175 assembly seats, pushing YSRCP to the margins despite a significant residual vote share.Both states show how quickly regional dominance can collapse when organisational depth and narrative control shift.

The Southern Wall

Tamil Nadu: Outlier that resists

Tamil Nadu remains the clearest exception.In the 2021 assembly elections, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won 133 of 234 seats. In 2024, the DMK-led alliance secured 22 of 39 Lok Sabha seats. BJP’s vote share remains in single digits.Strong linguistic identity, entrenched welfare politics and the legacy of Dravidian ideology have limited BJP’s expansion. Seat conversion for regional parties remains efficient, and internal splits have so far been avoided.

Kerala: Ideological resilience

Kerala’s alternating Left and Congress coalitions continue to resist national consolidation. BJP’s vote share hovers around 11–15%, with limited seat gains despite a strong cadre base.High political literacy, entrenched welfare systems and cohesive minority blocs have constrained BJP’s growth. Yet even here, regional dominance remains confined within state borders, offering little national leverage.

The BJP playbook, in numbers

Nationally, the BJP-led NDA governs 19 states and is currently at its highest-ever strength in atate assemblies. The BJP alone presently has 1654 MLAs across state assemblies. Regional parties together hold roughhly about 31% of MLAs.BJP’s containment strategy is consistent:

Urbanisation, aspirational voting and fatigue with dynastic feuds have amplified these effects.

The larger picture

India’s regional parties are not extinct. They still win elections and govern states. But the data since 2014 shows their power is increasingly bounded.Civic routs in Maharashtra, the fall of AAP in Delhi, and reversals in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh all point to the same conclusion: the pathway from state power to national influence has narrowed dramatically.As 2026 assembly elections approach in five states and UT, the challenge for regional parties is no longer survival alone. It is to reinvention in current political climate. Will Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin be able to hold their grounds or will the BJP push their parties to a wall? We will know by mid-year.

NEW DELHI: Who will be Mumbai’s mayor? With the BMC results now out, India’s richest civic body is still waiting for a new head. In the financial capital of the country, familiar scenes of Maharashtra politics are unfolding, rounding up winning corporators, hotel stays, number crunching, and sharp political exchanges.The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), long considered a Thackeray stronghold, delivered a mixed verdict. Despite Shiv Sena (UBT) supremo Uddhav Thackeray and MNS chief Raj Thackeray coming together after years of rivalry and bitterness for each other, Mumbai voted differently. While the BJP did not secure an outright majority, it emerged as the single largest party, denting the traditional “Marathi manoos” narrative and gaining a decisive edge. A major chunk of bargaining power also went to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, making it a key player in the mayoral race.The BJP recorded its best-ever performance in BMC elections, winning 89 wards and continuing its winning momentum after its Bihar victory. Shiv Sena (UBT) came second with 65 wards but lost many of its traditional strongholds. The Shinde-led Sena, a BJP ally, won 29 wards, followed by the Congress with 24. AIMIM won eight wards, the Raj Thackeray’s MNS six, the NCP three, the Samajwadi Party two, and the NCP (SP) one.

Shinde Sena eyes mayor’s chair?

Suspense continues as the Eknath Shinde–led Shiv Sena is keen on securing the mayor’s post, at least for the first 2.5 years. On Saturday, the party shifted its newly elected corporators to a luxury hotel in Mumbai, claimed by Sanjay Raut as the Taj Lands End, fuelling fresh speculation.Party leaders said the move was meant to help corporators relax after the polls and attend orientation sessions. Shinde felicitated the winners, while corporator Amey Ghole said the deputy chief minister would brief them on Mumbai’s development plans, manifesto implementation, and a five-year roadmap.Sena leaders argued that since the BJP does not have the numbers to elect a mayor on its own, the post must be shared. They said the Shinde Sena would demand the first 2.5-year mayoral term as part of power-sharing.

‘No differences’: Fadnavis

Amid intense speculation over the mayor’s name and reports of tensions within the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis dismissed any talk of discord.Rejecting rumours of infighting or poaching, Fadnavis said Mumbai would have a consensus “Mahayuti mayor.”“Eknath Shinde, I, and other leaders from both parties will meet and jointly decide who will be the Mumbai mayor and for how long. There will be no differences. Everything will go smoothly. Together, we will run Mumbai efficiently,” he said.

UBT’s stand

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has sought to highlight cracks within the ruling alliance and strongly questioned the legitimacy of a Mahayuti mayor. The party argued that neither the BJP nor the Shinde Sena has a clear majority on its own.UBT spokesperson Sanjay Raut questioned the BJP’s claim to the mayor’s post. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants a BJP mayor, but he has not explained how. The BJP does not have a complete mandate,” Raut said. He also alleged that Shinde Sena corporators were being confined in a hotel. “They are being kept at the Taj Lands End almost like prisoners. The hotel has turned into a jail. Despite having power at the Centre and a strong chief minister in Maharashtra, why are they so afraid?” he asked.Amid the suspense, UBT Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray struck a defiant tone, taking a swipe at former colleague and now a rival, deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde and alleging that his faction was afraid of the BJP. Addressing newly elected corporators at Matoshree, Uddhav said that while the BJP may claim it had finished Shiv Sena on paper, it had failed to do so on the ground and “cannot buy loyalty despite using all possible means.“He accused the BJP of winning the polls through “betrayal” and alleged that the party wanted to “mortgage Mumbai.” “The BJP won by betrayal, and the Marathi manoos will not forgive this sin,” he said, adding that it remained his party’s dream to have a Shiv Sena (UBT) mayor elected. “With God’s grace, it will happen,” he said.

BJP cashed in on ‘manoos’

More than 60% of the BJP’s 89 newly elected BMC corporators 54 in all are Marathis, suggesting that identity continues to shape Mumbai politics. The party said the results showed strong backing from the Marathi community despite the high-decibel nativist campaign by Shiv Sena (UBT) and the MNS, crediting its “community engineering” strategy for the gains.Of the remaining corporators, 14 are Gujaratis and 10 are from north India, with winners also from Sindhi-Punjabi and south Indian communities, reflecting the BJP’s broad outreach.Mumbai BJP chief MLA Ameet Satam said the party’s “Hindutva” pitch, backed by micro-level planning and targeted community outreach, helped it break into linguistic vote banks while retaining its traditional support.Political observers said the polls tested the Thackeray brand after Uddhav and Raj Thackeray joined hands. While some Marathi voters stayed with them, analysts said the “Marathi manoos” narrative had limited impact, with the BJP drawing away a section of these voters.

File photo of Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday made a strong pitch for generational transition in leadership, suggesting that the older generation should step aside once systems begin to function smoothly and allow younger people to take charge.Addressing a press conference in Nagpur ahead of the Advantage Vidarbha–Khasdar Audhyogik Mahotsav, Gadkari said he firmly believes in gradually handing over responsibility to the next generation. The industrial expo has been conceptualised by Gadkari and is organised by Ashish Kale, president of the Association for Industrial Development (AID).Highlighting Kale’s role, Gadkari said the initiative has actively involved young people. “I believe that gradually, the generation should also change,” he said.Referring to his long association with Kale’s family, Gadkari added, “Ashish’s father is my friend. Now we should be gradually made to retire and the responsibility be given to the new generation, and when the vehicle starts running smoothly, then we should withdraw and do some other work.”Gadkari, who serves as AID’s chief mentor, said this year marks the third edition of the Advantage Vidarbha expo, which will be held in Nagpur from February 6 to 8. He noted that Vidarbha has strong entrepreneurial talent across multiple sectors and said the aim of the event is to position the region as a growing industrial hub.“The objective of the three-day event is to establish Vidarbha as a strong and emerging growth hub on India’s industrial map,” he said.Emphasising the pillars of regional development, Gadkari underlined the importance of the industrial sector, agriculture and allied activities, and the services sector. He said balanced growth across these areas is essential for long-term economic progress.The Advantage Vidarbha expo will see participation from industries across a wide range of sectors, including textiles, plastics, minerals, coal, aviation, logistics, IT, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, defence, real estate, renewable energy, and startups.

There is much outrage in the medical community that the cut off for NEET PG 2025 has been reduced to zero percentile for the reserved category, which is equivalent to a score of minus 40. However, this is not the first time a score of minus 40 was good enough to qualify. The cut off was similarly reduced to zero percentile in 2023 for all categories and then too the equivalent score was minus 40.In 2023, when the medical counselling committee announced the reduction to zero percentile, it did not reveal that this was equivalent to a score of minus 40. TOI had analysed the NEET scores and pointed out that zero percentile meant 14 candidates who scored zero marks, 13 with negative marks and the one getting the lowest mark of -40 out of 800 would also qualify. In 2025, there are 126 candidates who have scored zero or less. Zero percentile means the lowest score or that none of the candidates got less. In 2023 and in 2025, one candidate got the lowest score of -40.Interestingly, in July 2022, in response to a petition filed by three students seeking lower cut off, the government had stated in court that “minimum qualifying percentile for admission is required to be maintained to ensure minimum standard of education and general standards for admission to professional courses”. Taking the government’s argument into consideration, the court dismissed the petition and ruled against lowering the standards of medical education as it “involves in its ambit the matter of life and death”.In 2023, govt officials were quoted in news reports justifying lowering the cut off to zero as a one-time measure to fill vacant PG seats. However, this has become a regular feature with cut offs being lowered to abysmal levels every year. About 2 lakh to 2.3 lakh students appear for NEET PG for over 70,000 seats (about 57,000 MD/MS seats and the rest are DNB and PG diploma seats). However, the seats in private medical colleges remain vacant as the fees for clinical subjects in many of them runs into crores which most candidates cannot afford. Lowering the cut off increases the pool of ‘qualified’ candidates and improves the chance of finding candidates with deep pockets who can afford the fees even if they have rock bottom scores.“To lower NEET PG qualifying marks to abysmal level is driven solely by commercial considerations. This decision ‘reserves’ post-graduate medical seats to the rich and mighty in commercial fiefdoms called private medical colleges. This is shameful and must be condemned as unadulterated corruption,” tweeted former principal health secretary of Andhra Pradesh Dr PV Ramesh.

Nadia: TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee during a road show ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections, in Nadia district, West Bengal. (PTI Photo)

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of blocking central funds meant for West Bengal. His remarks came on a day when the prime minister addressed a rally in the poll-bound state, urging voters to end the TMC’s 15-year “maha jungle-raj.”Also Read | ‘Bengal ready to topple TMC’s maha-jungleraj’: PM Modi rips into Mamata govt at Singur rally“You blocked funds meant for the people of Bengal and harassed them. You inflicted miseries on the people of Bengal over the last five years, and so your party will be reduced to below 50 seats in the assembly polls,” Banerjee said while addressing a rally in West Bengal’s Nadia district.His aunt, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee—who also heads the TMC—has repeatedly accused the BJP-led Union government of withholding central funds for the state and has made the issue a key poll plank.The Diamond Harbour MP further asserted that the fall of the BJP-led government at the Centre would begin in West Bengal.“In the coming days, the people of Bengal will throw you out of power in Delhi after electing the TMC for the fourth time. ‘Poriborton habe’ (there will be change at the Centre),” he remarked.On the recent Enforcement Directorate raids at the Kolkata office of I-PAC—a leading political consultancy that has been working with the TMC since 2021—Banerjee accused the Centre of “misusing” central agencies against opposition-run states.“They tried to steal our data before the elections, but we have people’s support. They (the BJP) have everything—from the ED and CBI to a section of the media. They put central agencies behind me before the 2021 elections but failed. Now they are resorting to falsehood,” he stated.Referring to the ongoing revision of electoral rolls, Banerjee claimed that despite allegations of large numbers of illegal immigrants, the exercise had identified 54 lakh “unmapped voters” in the state.“Now, unhappy with the findings, they are planning to delete over one crore names from the electoral rolls. We will not allow this to happen,” he alleged.Buoyed by its success in the recent assembly elections in neighbouring Bihar, the BJP is eyeing its first stint in power in West Bengal, where the TMC, under Mamata Banerjee, has been in office since 2011.

PM Modi in Assam (PTI photo)

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday praised his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying the country has placed its faith in the BJP for the past one-and-a-half years and that the party has been on a “continuous rise.”Hailing the major victories of the BJP, after a brief setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi said: “BJP has become the first choice of everyone in the country”.“Recently, elections were held in Bihar and people gave a record mandate to the BJP. Two days ago, municipal corporation election results for major cities in Maharashtra were held. One of the world’s biggest municipal corporations, Mumbai, gave a historic mandate to the BJP, making the party win for the first time… In Kerala municipal elections also, people greatly supported the BJP, and Thiruvananthapuram has a BJP mayor for the first time,” PM Modi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Hitting out at the rival Congress, PM accused the party of “handing over Assam‘s land to infiltrators for votes during its rule in the northeastern state”.PM Modi alleged that infiltration kept increasing during the Congress rule in Assam for decades, with illegal immigrants encroaching upon forests, animal corridors and traditional institutions.”The BJP government is protecting Assam’s identity and culture by evicting infiltrators who encroached land,” he said in Assam’s Kaliabor.”Voters trust BJP for good governance and development. In the Bihar polls, people gave the party record votes and seats even after 20 years in power,” he said.PM Modi’s remark comes days after BJP pulled off a massive victory in Mumbai’s BMC elections, wresting power from the ally-turned-rival Uddhav Thackeray.BJP-led Mahayuti crossed the halfway mark of 114 in the 227-member body, but not by much. BJP won 89 seats and Shinde’s Shiv Sena 29 to gain a narrow lead. In effect, the BJP will need Eknath Shinde’s backing for big decisions.The Uddhav-Raj Thackeray combine won 71 seats (Uddhav’s Sena winning 65 and Raj Thackeray’s MNS taking 6), retaining a large chunk of wards in the city’s Marathi heartland but losing out on the control of Asia’s richest civic body.PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the Rs 6,957-crore Kaziranga Elevated Corridor, and virtually flagged off two Amrit Bharat trains in Assam’s Nagaon district.Modi, who arrived here from Guwahati in the final leg of his two-day visit to the state, performed ‘Bhoomi Poojan’ of the Kaziranga project.The corridor is aimed at ensuring safe wildlife movement across the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, reduce road accidents on National Highway-715, and boost ecotourism, while generating local employment opportunities, an official said.It forms part of the four-laning of the Kaliabor-Numaligarh section of NH-715, and includes around 34.45 km of elevated wildlife-friendly corridors, along with bypasses at Jakhalabandha and Bokakhat, he said.PM Modi also reviewed a model of the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor.The Prime Minister also virtually flagged off two Amrit Bharat Express trains – Dibrugarh-Gomti Nagar (Lucknow) and Kamakhya-Rohtak.