State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Thursday said that the village council elections will be held on a single day, with the deadline for filing nominations set for June 15. The votes will be counted on July 11.
Suvendu Adhikari, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate against Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram, Monday said he has sought rejection of the nomination of the West Bengal chief minister for not declaring six criminal cases against her while filing her papers.
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
Meet Nilima Kalra, 79, Manju Roy, 80, Sumita Maan, 79, and Gurpreet Kaur, 75.
Questioning the team's authority headed by a former Patna high court judge, Banerjee pointed out that Ram Navami processions organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party had carried arms and driven tractors and deliberately taken routes where 'Namaz' was being offered.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the latest episode in the Bengal 2021 drama.
The Calcutta high court Wednesday directed the West Bengal government to requisition central forces for assisting the state police in maintaining peace during Hanuman Jayanti celebrations.
The apex court, which dismissed the pleas filed by the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission (SEC) challenging the high court order, said the tenor of the high court order was ultimately to ensure free and fair election in the state.
Some BJP activists had allegedly raised the slogan a a party programme in West Bengal's Hooghly district on Wednesday, following which district police registered a suo motu case and arrested them late at night, an officer said.
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
Sporadic incidents of violence and allegations of booth jamming marred the voting process in the second phase.
The TMC chief has been complaining for long alleging that her rivals have brought in goons from other states to intimidate voters.
Claiming Banerjee has been made aware that Justice Kausik Chanda, who is hearing her plea, was 'an active member of the Bharatiya Janata Party' and since the adjudication of the election petition will have political ramifications, it was prayed that the matter be assigned to another judge by the Acting Chief Justice, who is the master of roster.
Violence had rocked West Bengal's rural polls on Saturday, leaving 15 people dead while ballot boxes were vandalised, ballot papers torched, and bombs thrown at rivals in several places.
West Bengal Congress spokesperson Kaustav Bagchi was granted bail by a court in Kolkata on Saturday evening, hours after being arrested for his alleged comments against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
As state minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with other functionaries, openly air grievances against the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation, senior leaders are frantically looking for ways to pacify the rebels.
Laxman Chandra Seth, believed by the vast population of the area to have been the villain of the historic anti-farmland acquisition movement in 2007, said the two built their political careers by misleading the innocent people of Nandigram. Now their lies are back to haunt them.
In yet another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, as senior leader of the state's ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the 'beginning of the saffron party's end' in the state.
A Trinamool Congress delegation met the Election Commission (EC) on Friday and demanded a high-level probe into an alleged attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram and claimed it was not an 'unfortunate incident', but a conspiracy.
'I did get a ticket, but getting nominated isn't enough.' 'The people in Habibpur, my own party workers, are my opponents.' 'Is it possible to win?'
Those who have 'sold their souls to outsiders from Gujarat' are insulting the Nandigram movement by playing the communal card, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday, and rejected the claim that she was an outsider in Nandigram.
An FIR was registered against the managing director of a private school in Kanpur on Tuesday after some parents and right-wing members objected to the recitation of Islamic verses during the morning assembly.
In a break from tradition, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was on Thursday administered the oath as a member of the state assembly by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
A huge controversy erupted on Sunday amid the polling for 30 assembly seats in West Bengal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party releasing an audio clip where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is purportedly heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to rejoin the Trinamool Congress and help her win the seat.
The district officials named 306 other unrecognized Islamic education institutions in their report as illegal.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
Later on while speaking to the reporters, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the BJP legislators were forced to stage protest as there was no mention of post-poll violence in the speech copy circulated among the MLAs.
'A pro-Modi wave and anti-incumbency will be incomplete without strong candidates.'
Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting in all the 30 seats, while the Communist Party of India-Marxist is in the fray in 15 and its alliance partners of Sanjukta Morcha the Congress and ISF are competing in 13 and two seats respectively.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination for Nandigram assembly seat, where she will take on her former protege and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari and exuded confidence of winning it saying she has never returned empty-handed from the land of anti-farm land acquisition movement.
TMC's campaign in the seat in south Kolkata is already underway with the Election Commission announcing the by-poll on Saturday, following a request from the state government to avoid a constitutional crisis.
Bypoll to the Bhabanipur assembly seat in West Bengal, from where chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee plans to contest, would be held on September 30, the Election Commission announced on Saturday.
Banerjee, who lost the election in Nandigram, has to win this bypoll to retain the chief minister's post.
Announcing the name of candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she will be contesting from the Nandigram constituency as announced earlier.
West Bengal, which is governed by the Trinamool Congress, became the second state after Congress-ruled Punjab, where such a resolution has been tabled and passed.
With his exit, the TMC will lose a crucial, politically influential vote catcher in the Jungalmahal region and areas in minority-dominated Murshidabad, and the BJP will get a face it badly needs, especially in rural Bengal, reports Aditi Phadnis.
A woman who had suffered burns in the petrol bomb attack in Bogtui village in Birbhum district last week died in a hospital on Monday, raising the toll to nine, a police officer said.
Mathew Samuel said that steps against corruption are needed and investigations should be fair.
While the first house has been rented for a year, according to neighbours, the other house has been rented for six months. Both houses are located at a distance of approximately 100 metres from each other in the Reyapara area.
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