A plea challenging the Election Commission's decision to conduct assembly elections over eight phases in West Bengal was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday.
'As long as Amul was coming in with products it was not a problem because it was something value added and with a shelf life.' 'When it gets into the local market by procuring locally, it cuts into the market-share of local cooperatives.'
'As soon as the violence broke out, they should have stepped in and sent a message that the state is there to stop this violence.' 'Had they done it right there, the situation would not have gone out of control.'
For the chief minister and Assam alike, the road ahead is full of challenges, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The AGP, which has ruled the state on its own twice, will play the junior partner and contest 24 seats while the rest 126 will be divided among BJP and three smaller outfits, with the saffron party leading the alliance.
The fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections began on Friday, covering seven constituencies in four states where over half-a-crore voters decide the fate of 74 candidates.
The spark for the raging violence was lit by demonstrations by tribal groups against a move to grant the majority Meiteis the Scheduled Tribe status, which the residents of the hills had been enjoying for decades since Independence.
With assembly elections coming up in Assam and Bengal, the BJP election machine will go all out to woo MLAs from rival parties to its side. No one picks up MLAs better than Santa Shah, says Dominic Xavier.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed to hear next week the EC's plea after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted a large number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines (VVPATs) are still being preserved and need to be released.
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
Actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee has been fielded from Chunchura and another MP Nishit Parmanik from Dinhata. Also, a number of film personalities have been nominated as candidates in the high-stakes battle for West Bengal.
A video of protesters purportedly raising 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans during an agitation held in Pune by the Popular Front of India (PFI) has surfaced on social media, prompting some BJP leaders in Maharashtra to demand strong action against the slogan shouters.
Mevani claimed that Patidar community leader Hardik Patel's resignation from the Congress did not create much impact for the party.
Soren also claimed that his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma indulged in "purchase" of Jharkhand MLAs.
The rebel members of Legislative Assembly of the ruling Congress in Assam on Saturday apparently failed to cause much discomfort for veteran Tarun Gogoi, the chief minister, in the special sitting of the legislature party. At the end Gogoi came out victorious with all the MLAs promising to try winning all the 14 Lok Sabha seats for the party in Assam in the next general election.
While EC Secretary General Umesh Sinha would be visiting Tamil Nadu next week, Deputy Election Commissioner Sudip Jain would be in West Bengal in the coming days, sources said.
Ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, Churchill Alemao 'merged' the NCP with the TMC. The 'merger' took place when Mamata Banerjee was in Mumbai talking to NCP supreme leader Sharad Pawar on how to forge Opposition unity!
With two cabinet ministers and three ministers of state, the Northeastern region was on Wednesday handsomely rewarded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first reshuffle of his ministry in the second tenure.
After barring Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma from campaigning in the assembly polls for 48 hours, the Election Commission has also transferred his brother and Goalpara Superintendent of Police Sushanta Biswa Sarma from the district.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
Sources said the BJP is expecting Sena rebels, who include 39 MLAs and have been joined by at least 10 independents in a Guwahati hotel, to make the first move by approaching Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are among the star campaigners of the party for the October 30 bypolls to four Assembly seats in the state, but interestingly, the names of actor-turned-MP Nusrat Jahan and former BJP leader Babul Supriyo, who recently joined the TMC camp do not feature in the list.
Counting of votes in all elections will be held on May 2.
'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.'
After some recent events that turned against the party, including the Congress' G-23 Group asking for a revamp in the party, Congress leader and MP Manish Tiwari has been included in the star campaigners list of Congress for Assam and West Bengal Assembly polls.
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.
In view of rising incidence of crime against women, Assam chief minister Tarun Kumar Gogoi has set one-month deadline for the State's Home and Political Department to prepare a detail action plan to prevent and control such incidents.
As results pour in for the four states -- West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam -- and one Union Territory -- Puducherry - here's a glimpse at the leaders who are trailing and those who are leading.
Ten Union ministers will be the permanent invitees to the Inter-State Council, according to an official notification.
BSF director general (DG) Pankaj Kumar Singh on Tuesday said that the "demographic balance" has been upset in border-states like Assam and West Bengal over a period of time and that was probably the reason that the Centre recently extended the force's jurisdiction.
The defeat in the elections has put a question mark on the five-time MP and former Union minister's political future.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
Dev, who was one of the national spokespersons of the grand-old party and its women's wing chief, switched over to the Mamata Banerjee-led camp last month.
Controversial Congress MLA Rumi Nath, who was arrested for her alleged links with a pan-India car theft racket, was on Wednesday sent to judicial custody.
What did Mamata and Yogi, who were seated one seat away from each other, say to each other, we wonder.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Addressing the Sena workers in Mumbai for the second consecutive day, he also said that doors of the state and party are closed for the rebels MLAs.
The situation in Manipur remained tense on Sunday, after mobile internet services were suspended across the state and prohibitory orders imposed in some areas in the wake of an indefinite 'economic blockade' on two national highways called by an influential student' body over more autonomy for the hill districts, officials said.
Sarma's eyes, according to those close to him, were always set on the top job in Assam. However, the leader who owed his early rise to two former chief ministers from the Congress had to toil for many years with dogged determination to achieve his goal.
The Congress fared poorly, drawing a blank in West Bengal and failing to win back power in Kerala and Assam, besides losing Puducherry. The party only came to power with the help of its ally Dravida Munnetra Kazagham in Tamil Nadu.
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