Hours after quitting as the MLA of the West Bengal Assembly, Rajib Banerjee on Friday resigned from the primary membership of the Trinamool Congress, intensifying speculation that he might soon switch over to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Congress and Left Front on Thursday finalised sharing of 193 seats of the total 294 in West Bengal assembly with the Left parties getting the lion's share of 101 seats.
Belying all expectations, the Trinamool Congress registreted a landslide victory in West Bengal assembly elections, overcoming the might of the Bharatiya Janata Party after a bitter campaign that had turned into a virtual duel between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Bengali sub-nationalism is slowly emerging as a rallying cry ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections due next year.
Observing that there are "definite and proved" allegations that complaints of the victims of violence in the aftermath of the West Bengal assembly polls were not even registered, the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all alleged cases of heinous crimes like rape and murder, while accepting the recommendations of a National Human Rights Commission panel.
Mirza was produced before a special CBI court in Kolkata, which remanded him in the central probe agency's custody till September 30.
Mitra, who had resigned from the BJP a few days ago, is considered close to veteran leader L K Advani.
When the BJP forms government in Bengal, the chief minister will be a son of the soil, he said at the rally amid loud cheers from his supporters.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed concern over the recent violence in Nandigram and asked Union Home minister Shivraj Patil to look into it urgently. In a letter to the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Partha Chatterjee, Dr Singh said, "I have seen your letter of October 28, 2007 regarding the recent incidents in Nandigram. I am concerned about the developments there and I have spoken to the Home Minister to look into these urgently."
TC chief Mmata Banerjee was stopped from going to Singur for a party programme against hand over of land to the Tatas.
Congress Saturday ruled out an electoral alliance with Trinamool Congress in the coming West Bengal assembly polls unless it severed ties with the National Democratic Alliance.
Nandigram has seen violent incidents over the issue of acquisition of land for a SEZ to be set up by Indonesia's Salim Group.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
Company MD Ravi Kant meets Chief Minister Buddhadeb, discusses plan.
Pawan Ruia has finally done it, a beaming Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, then West Bengal chief minister, had said at the reopening of the 70-year-old Sahagunj factory owned by Dunlop in 2005. But with the Calcutta high court passing a winding-up order in 2013 and the Trinamool Congress-led state government passing a Bill to take over the company in 2016, the once-upon-a-time undisputed leader in the Indian tyre industry looks vastly undone. But that can hardly be a deterrent for Ruia, who has a penchant for making headlines one way or the other.
She also raised the issue of the state's renaming and invited Modi to Bengal.
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.
'Unlike past governments, we never protect or save criminals.'
Upholding principles was a luxury when there were charismatic leaders capable of winning elections without stooping low to indulge in identity politics, observes Virendra Kapoor.
CPI (M) veteran Jyoti Basu had on Sunday said that formation of the seventh Left Front government in the state would be a fitting a tribute to Biswas.
Rao's visit is significant in the wake of Trinamool Congress' allegation that there were discrepancies in the district voters' list.
The West Bengal polls will be in five phases.
Former Bengal pace spearhead Ashoke Dinda, who is fighting from the Moyna constituency in Purba Medinipur district, said the BJP desperately wants BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly to join the party.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
The notion that the BJP gained its increased tally by wiping out the Left parties and the Congress is completely misleading. Equally misleading is the belief that the TMC held its ground in all its existing seats. A little more than a fifth of the seats Mamata Banerjee's party had won in 2016 was lost to the BJP this time.
'Whether the Hindu voter will vote for us or not, we can't say, can we?'
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her government had to pass a legislation against such crimes as the Centre was unwilling to take the initiative.
Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
'Mamata's numbers will reduce this time compared to 2016.'
If the BJP wins Bengal, would Kishor's indiscretions have played a significant role in that victory? Victory for the TMC would be another badge of honour in his CV, but defeat would raise an unsavoury question: Which party was Kishor actually working for? asks Payal Singh Mohanka.
Rachpal Singh, the minister for planning and development in the Mamata Banerjee government invited flak for his actions.
Biswas, 64, complained of chest pain at the Howrah station after his return from New Delhi. He was admitted to the Medical College Hospital where he breathed his last.
Amit Shah, who missed campaigning in Bihar, made a two-day trip to Bengal starting November 5 to oversee BJPs preparedness for the state polls.
Shah, who held a closed door meeting to take stock of the party organisation, said he could 'sense massive public anger' against the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in the state and gave a call to 'uproot' it in the state polls.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O' Brien met the agitating farmers at the Singhu border in the afternoon.
'Mamata will beat the living daylights out of BJP workers with the result that people who are not totally committed, they will promptly leave the party and go back to Trinamool.' 'Or when they find they cannot get what they came to the BJP for they will go back to Trinamool.'
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