CV Ananda Bose on Wednesday took oath as the new governor of West Bengal.
Adhikari, the face of the Nandigram movement that catapulated Mamata Bannerjee to power in 2011, sent his resignation letter to the chief minister by fax, which he then forwarded to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar by e-mail.
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
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.
Adhikari joined the BJP amid Shah's two-day visit to West Bengal ahead of the assembly elections in 2021.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in the state this weekend, while his colleagues Gajendra Shekhawat, Sanjeev Balyan, Prahlad Patel, Arjun Munda and Mansukh Mandaviya will be visiting in the next few days, sources in the party said on Thursday.
'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?'
Adhikari, leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, denied the charge, saying that he had recently gone to Mehta's residence in Delhi regarding a case related to "post-poll violence" in the state but "could not meet him in person".
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.
Her campaign in the high-stakes constituency will begin at 11 am on Monday with an 8-kilometre roadshow from Khudiram More to Thakurchowk in Nandigram Block 2, followed by a public meeting in Jansabha Boyal II.
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.
High drama was witnessed on the first day of the budget session of the West Bengal assembly on Monday as Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was forced to table his inaugural address with Bharatiya Janata Party legislators staging a protest in the House over alleged violence in the recently concluded civic elections in the state.
The Trinamool Congress on Monday wrote to Kolkata Police Commissioner Soumen Mitra seeking 'necessary action' under the law against the Central Bureau of Investigaton officials who arrested three senior party leaders 'illegally'.
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.
The unrest in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal ballooned into a major political row on Thursday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the saffron camp of fomenting trouble in the area, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Commission for Women (NCW) accused her party Trinamool Congress and the state government of being complicit in crimes against women in the area.
The impact of the explosion "was so massive" that the factory, which was being run from a residential building, collapsed, the police said.
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
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.
As the West Bengal chief minister was busy containing the fallout of an internecine feud in her TMC following a rebellion by a redoubtable Suvendu Adhikari, the Centre shot off a fresh letter to her government to immediately relieve three IPS officers for central deputation.
The BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.
Additional Superintendent of Police (city), Etawah, Prashant Kumar Prasad is heard telling a senior over the phone, "Sir, I have been slapped. BJP workers have also brought bombs."
Rescue officials confirmed casualties in the incident, claiming to have already recovered 5 bodies from the heap of debris where the cracker manufacturing unit once stood.
Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday appealed for peace and asked "Hindu brothers" to ensure that minorities are protected, as prohibitory orders remained in force after post-Ram Navami violence in two towns of the densely populate Hooghly district.
West Bengal is home to 43,000 Durga Pujas, and the business around it is a major economic driver.
Sandeshkhali, a village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, has been at the centre of a political storm for nearly a month and has witnessed unprecedented protests over allegations of sexual abuse by scores of women against a local Trinamool Congress leader.
'A pro-Modi wave and anti-incumbency will be incomplete without strong candidates.'
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.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday received wholehearted support from a group of women from the troubled Sandeshkhali area who met her after a Trinamool Congress rally in Kolkata, party sources said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to stop mass joinings from the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal amid growing resentment within the saffron party over rampant inductions without scrutiny, senior leaders said on Tuesday.
However, a few defectors, who joined the BJP, got the better of their TMC rivals, including Suvendu Adhikari who emerged as a proverbial giant slayer, by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee albeit by a narrow margin.
The bypoll on September 5 is also a litmus test for all three political outfits, with the BJP hoping to check its erosion in its vote share and retain the seat, the TMC aiming to wrest the tribal-dominated assembly segment and the CPI(M)-Congress alliance hoping to regain its traditional seat.
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.
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.
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.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
'The TMC forgets that if people don't stand by you, your party will never win.'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and party MP Abhishek Banerjee was on Sunday slapped by a party worker during a rally at Chandipur in East Midnapore district.
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.
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.
Over 1.54 crore voters in the eastern states of West Bengal and Assam will exercise their franchise in the 1st phase of polling
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