Modi's Rs 92,000 Cr. Great Nicobar Project is “One of the Biggest Scams” Says Rahul; Bengal's Phase II Also Sees 90%+ Turnout; Jaishankar, Araghchi Hold Sixth Call Amid War
Power and Firepower: 1 in 3 Chief Ministers and 1 in 4 Union Cabinet Ministers Own Weapons; Why isn't NHRC Looking into Harassment of Muslims, Allahabad HC Judge Asks
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Snapshot of the day
April 29, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia
Despite travel restrictions and the suspension of helicopter services to the Nicobar group of islands from April 28 to May 1, or until further orders, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi managed to reach Great Nicobar, the southernmost island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, where he sharply criticised the Union government’s proposed Rs 92,000-crore infrastructure push. Gandhi described the massive project – set to replace nearly 160 square kilometres of lush primary rainforest while also threatening coral reefs and turtle nesting sites – as one of the country’s “biggest scams” and the “largest thefts of ecological property.”
He also alleged that the Union government was going ahead with these projects so that Gautam Adani, the owner of the Adani Group, would benefit from this: “It’s amazing that 160 sq km of this forest is going to be chopped up so that one businessman Mr. Adani can fulfill his fantasies. Just the wood here is worth lakhs of crores,” said Gandhi.
At 1:34–1:36 in the video uploaded on X, a rare endemic mammal is briefly visible sprinting along a branch in the background: a Nicobar treeshrew, one of the species whose survival is at stake, as Gandhi speaks while standing beneath the large old-growth rainforest trees of Great Nicobar Island. This was quickly identified by Dr Divya Mudappa, a prominent ecologist with the Nature Conservation Foundation.
The project must be stopped. And it can be stopped if Indians choose to see what he has seen, Gandhi said.
As polling concluded earlier today in an election like no other under the shadow of the SIR of electoral rolls by the Election Commission, the embargo on exit polls lifted at 6:30 pm, with several news channels have unveiled their predictions soon after [See Huge turnout again in Bengal phase 2; exit polls out with forecasts]. Television coverage, as expected, was triumphant with “record voting” through the evening, but much of it may overlook an incredibly important point: the total electorate has shrunk, notes The Hindu’s editorial.
“According to provisional Election Commission of India (ECI) data, 93.2% of voters turned out in the first phase in West Bengal and 85.1% in T.N. These record numbers must be read against the backdrop of the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which led to massive net voter deletions. In T.N., the rolls shrank by 10.5% from the pre-SIR figure, while in West Bengal nearly 13% of the electorate was deleted, with the eligibility of lakhs of voters still being heard by tribunals. If this is factored in, the percentage turnout begins to look inflated by a reduced denominator (total electorate) rather than by genuinely expanded participation (the numerator). The absolute increase in turnout in T.N. — about 27 lakh votes on provisional figures — was in fact among the lowest in recent electoral cycles, suggesting that wrongful deletions may have suppressed real participation even if the SIR did clear the electoral rolls of those who had died or moved out.”
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has
