BUG: assert_index_equal CategoricalIndex incomparable categories gives AssertionError

Author: Aniketsy

doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst

@@ -687,10 +687,10 @@ Bug fixes
 Categorical
 ^^^^^^^^^^^
 - Bug in :func:`Series.apply` where ``nan`` was ignored for :class:`CategoricalDtype` (:issue:`59938`)
+- Bug in :func:`testing.assert_index_equal` raising ``TypeError`` instead of ``AssertionError`` for incomparable ``CategoricalIndex`` when ``check_categorical=True`` and ``exact=False`` (:issue:`61935`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.pivot` and :meth:`DataFrame.set_index` raising an ``ArrowNotImplementedError`` for columns with pyarrow dictionary dtype (:issue:`53051`)
 - Bug in :meth:`Series.convert_dtypes` with ``dtype_backend="pyarrow"`` where empty :class:`CategoricalDtype` :class:`Series` raised an error or got converted to ``null[pyarrow]`` (:issue:`59934`)
-- Bug in :func:`testing.assert_index_equal` raising ``TypeError`` instead of ``AssertionError`` for incomparable ``CategoricalIndex`` when ``check_categorical=True`` and ``exact=False`` (:issue:`61935`)
-- 
+-
 
 Datetimelike
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^

pandas/_testing/asserters.py

@@ -322,7 +322,8 @@ def _check_types(left, right, obj: str = "Index") -> None:
     # skip exact index checking when `check_categorical` is False
     elif check_exact and check_categorical:
         if not left.equals(right):
-            # _values compare can raise TypeError for non-comparable categoricals (GH#61935)
+            # _values compare can raise TypeError (non-comparable
+            # categoricals (GH#61935)
             try:
                 mismatch = left._values != right._values
             except TypeError: