Union Home Minister Amit Shah directed BJP leaders to intensify grassroots outreach in West Bengal, setting performance benchmarks for the upcoming state elections. He emphasized party unity and the importance of booth-level workers.
Deb cancelled the mandate event he had fixed on December 13 following intervention of BJP president J P Nadda, state observer Vinod Sonkar and the state ministers and BJP legislators reposing faith in him.
Deb, whose name was proposed by party MLA Sudip Roy Burman in the meeting, will be the new chief minister of Tripura, Gadkari said.
'Mr Modi has the power and pre-eminence in the BJP-RSS to choose how long he wants to serve, and he is definitely going to want to contest in 2029.' 'He will only be 79, as old as Donald Trump now, and fitter,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
Nayab Singh Saini on Wednesday staked claim to form the next government in Haryana, hours after he was unanimously elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party in the state.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
Saini, who is an MP from Kurukshetra, was unanimously elected as the leader of the state BJP legislature group and will be sworn in later in the day, party MLAs Subhash Sudha and J P Dalal told reporters.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
Governor Tathagata Roy also administered the oath of office to BJP leader Jishnu Deb Burman as the deputy chief minister along with seven other ministers, including Indigenous People's Front of Tripura chief N C Debbarma.
In the letter, they said as members of the committee, it is their moral and constitutional responsibility to discuss this matter with utmost urgency and the required sincerity.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused NIA officials of attacking villagers in Purba Medinipur district, the BJP hit back at her saying that the attack on the NIA officials is Sandeshkhalli 2.0 orchestrated by the state.
'Removing Biplab Deb and replacing him with Manik Saha is a fruitless exercise that the BJP national leadership has indulged in.' 'It is foolish to think that people will forget what these two have done to the state and its people in the last four years.'
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
The decision was taken to ensure the betterment of the state and the party in the days to come, senior leader Ratan Lal Nath told reporters shortly after Saha, the state BJP president, took oath as the new chief minister.
Banerjee also said she may not join the dharna being staged by Trinamool Congress MPs in protest against 'attack on party workers' in Tripura, but will surely express solidarity with them.
Former Chief Minister Biplab Deb, whose sudden resignation on Saturday evening got Saha the top job, was present at the ceremony along with BJP MLAs and state ministers.
In Tripura, the challenge for the chief minister is less from the alliance partners and more from his own party, the BJP.
He said he failed to understand the "process of judgement" of the crowning of the Miss World contest in 1997, in which Diana Hayden had got the award.
The CM believes "narrow-minded" ideas like graduates cannot opt for farming or start poultry are the reasons behind unemployment.
From Saha joining the saffron party in 2016 to being made chief minister last year in a brand renewal exercise last year, it has been a short but upward journey for the 69-year-old dental surgeon-turned politician.
'At a time when people don't like to even sacrifice their panchayat seat, Biplab Kumar Deb sacrificed the chair of chief minister with a smiling face.'
He also mentioned that despite repeated caution by his former Chief Secretary on the ground of contempt of court, his Cabinet took the decision for the ad hoc promotion of the government officials, which is a long-pending issue in the Supreme Court.
While Opposition MLAs in other states are dumping their parties to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, Tripura is seeing a reverse trend.
After the police rescinded its permission to hold the rally in front of Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhawan (Tagore Centenary Hall) in Agartala on Sunday and asked for the meeting venue to be shifted, the TMC filed an urgent case before the high court.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
The Tripura CM is no stranger to making controversial statements.
'Earlier, a lot of fear was in the minds of people that the BJP is anti-Christian and anti-minority, but over the years people have learnt to accept that the BJP is just another national party.'
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
The run-up to the polls, which should have been a humdrum affair, became a cause celebre after it was marred by violence, arrests, sit-ins in far-away Delhi and a Supreme Court intervention asking officials to ensure peaceful polling.
Earlier, too, Biplab Deb has courted controversies on several occasions. In 2018, he said internet and satellite television existed in the time of the Mahabharata.
On Wednesday, the Tripura chief minister said that famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore refused the Nobel Prize in protest against the English.
A case has been registered in Tripura against Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, member of Parliament Dola Sen, West Bengal education minister Bratya Basu and other senior leaders of the party for allegedly obstructing police officers from performing their duties.
The former Miss World has shaped the lives of many.
The BJP's strong showing came as a surprise for many as the party did not even have a councillor in Tripura.
'Biplab Deb said it was unfortunate.' 'If he continues to respond this way, then further damage will not happen.' 'But if under pressure from his party members he does not take action, then the future is dangerous.'
Criticising the saffron party for "undermining democratic values" in the country, the chief minister said, "Democracy exists in Bengal but it is under threat in several other parts of the country."
During his interaction with the chief ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured that more economic activities would resume; he also said that zone identification may be left to the states.
Are our ministers having fun at our expense? Any other explanation would suggest 'we are ruled by men whose judgement you cannot trust and whose grasp of reality is questionable,' says Karan Thapar.
The CM said he was proud that he was born in a country which had the "best communication system" and "best culture" in the whole world.
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