West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged people to celebrate the Hanuman Jayanti festival peacefully, and said while religion is a personal choice, festivities were an occasion for all to join in.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday stirred fresh controversy by saying 'ego prevailed over public service' on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee skipping Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting to review post-cyclone damages on May 28.
Didi is frightened by the rise of BJP in West Bengal," the PM said.
The amended Act has put the entire Northeast region and West Bengal on the boil as people fear that it might exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) alleged in the Supreme Court on Thursday that there was an attempt to cover up the rape and killing of a post-graduate medic at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital by the local police as the crime scene was altered by the time the federal agency took over the probe.
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the Bharatiya Janata Party in the driver's seat in national politics.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday asserted that she would win the ongoing state polls despite injury and eventually aim for power in Delhi.
The state government will help all those whose properties were vandalised in the clashes, she said.
Widespread violence between supporters of the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over alleged electoral malpractices in strife-torn Sandeshkhali marred the final phase of Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal on Saturday, resulting in injuries to a number of people.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
Banerjee, who was speaking on a resolution in the assembly against the 'excesses' of the central probe agencies, urged the prime minister to ensure that the agenda of the union government and the interests of his party do not get mixed up.
'I am happy to join the BJP and will work as a party soldier'
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that the decision of the Tata Group to withdraw from the Singur project was a colossal one.
Amidst reports of a possible parting of ways between Janata Dal United and the Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had given a call for a federal front, on Wednesday spoke to her Bihar and Odisha counterparts on the issue.
Whatever the outcome from the assembly elections, what's evident is that West Bengal has entered an era of identity politics, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
'Neither will I congratulate Mamata Banerjee... nor do I wish to say I 'respect' the people's verdict'
Banerjee, who is pitted against former lieutenant and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram seat, said that farmers are the pride of West Bengal and the state government is working tirelessly for their development.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Police had to resort to lathi charge to disperse the crowd.
The BJP has said it needs more time for campaigning.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on this Theatre of the Bizarre.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
The union minister went to the residence of Sanatan Singh at Balijhuri and had lunch there, sitting on the floor of the thatched house.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a two-day political tour of poll-bound West Bengal from Thursday during which he will launch the fifth and final phase of the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Poriborton Yatra' from the South 24 Parganas district and attend several other programmes.
It might happen if Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has her way!
Banerjee, who lost the election in Nandigram, has to win this bypoll to retain the chief minister's post.
'The life of his political career is dependent on success in this constituency.'
According to a lawyer, who attended the hearing on Monday, the court while dismissing the complaint said, "no offence was made out" against Banerjee.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Odisha, is set to meet her counterpart in the neighbouring state, Naveen Patnaik, on Thursday afternoon.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday appealed to the people to ensure the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in 35 seats out of the 42 in West Bengal in the next Lok Sabha polls, saying that the Trinamool Congress government would not survive beyond 2025 if the target is achieved.
The list includes constituencies where the BJP came second or third in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and also some which the party has never won.
The West Bengal chief minister is in Goa and expected to interact with party workers and the fishermen community.
Roy, the former second-in-command of the TMC who joined the saffron party in November 2017, has been distancing himself from the BJP for the last several days.
The 6 am to 6 pm shutdown call evoked a mixed response as the state government engaged its entire machinery to ensure that normal life remained unaffected.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sougata Roy has demanded the removal of Kalyan Banerjee as the party's chief whip in the Lok Sabha after a spat with fellow MP Mahua Moitra. Roy accused Banerjee of "uncivilised" behaviour on multiple occasions and cited incidents of Banerjee breaking a bottle and throwing it at the chairman of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) meeting and making inappropriate remarks about Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. The spat between Moitra and Banerjee reportedly occurred on April 4 when a TMC delegation met the Election Commission over duplicate voter ID numbers. Banerjee was tasked with collecting signatures from TMC MPs on a memorandum to be submitted to the Election Commission, and Moitra alleged that she was not included in the signatories, leading to a heated exchange. Roy, who was present at the time, said he saw Moitra crying and complaining about Banerjee's behaviour. Roy believes that Banerjee's actions warrant his removal as chief whip and left the decision to Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee. The incident has also been highlighted in leaked WhatsApp messages, where Banerjee engaged in heated exchanges with another TMC MP, Kirti Azad, leading to further accusations of uncivilised behaviour.
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