The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held the core group meeting of five states on Saturday at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
Addressing a press conference, Pawar said the trends of the assembly polls (in five states set to be held in November) suggest the situation is favourable for the opposition, but added he had no authentic information to comment on whether there would be a change (in government) at the national level.
The BJP on Thursday criticised the UPA government at the Centre and the Left front government in West Bengal, saying the country has lost national security under the UPA and Bengal has lost all its glory under the Marxists. "Under UPA, the country has lost national security with tension over its borders with China and Pakistan. While under the Marxist rule, West Bengal has lost all its glory because of infiltration by Bangladeshis and a spurt in Maoist activity," BJP said.
Over one crore voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 342 candidates on Saturday, when 45 assembly constituencies go to polls in the fifth phase, amid a raging second wave of COVID-19.
A Mumbai court on Wednesday issued summons to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and directed her to appear before it on March 2 in a case of allegedly showing disrespect to the national anthem during her visit to the city.
"A person cannot be punished twice for the same offence," a committee member said, adding that even BJP members took a "soft view" of the issue and were in favour of revocation of Chowdhury's suspension.
Alleging that there had been politicisation and criminalisation of government officers in the state, the BJP leader, who was on a two-day visit, said the TMC government had stopped sending crime statistics to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) after 2018.
'We defeated together in Bengal, now we will defeat in UP. This is a promise to Didi, we will emerge winners. Warm welcome and greetings to Didi in UP,' the SP chief tweeted sharing a picture with Banerjee.
Long queues were seen at outpatient department ticket counters in government hospitals, where senior doctors joined their junior colleagues in the protest.
Addressing a big rally in Kolkata to launch the Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha campaign, Shah launched a blistering attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the issues of appeasement, infiltration, corruption and political violence, alleging she has "destroyed" the state.
The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday to finalise its first list of candidates for five assembly polls, with top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to attend the meeting.
However, speculation remained rife that the meeting was part of Banerjee's plan to form an opposition front with regional players minus the Congress.
"There should be an impartial investigation into the incident as there was a complete lapse on the part of the administration to ensure proper security arrangements. "Around 7,000 people were reportedly present at the venue of the programme where the seating capacity was around 3,000 people. He was mobbed there, which means security arrangements were not in place for a VIP," BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
A majority of its Trinamool Congress coucillors switched over to the BJP.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday urged the Election Commission to declare Trinamool Congress as a 'terrorist party', upping the ante against the ruling party after political clashes in Birbhum violence left three people dead.
Besides the MLAs, there were two other people in the SUV, which carried a board mentioning "MLA Jamtara Jharkhand" along with the Congress' election symbol, police said.
West Bengal is home to 43,000 Durga Pujas, and the business around it is a major economic driver.
AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi's first rally in Kolkata, scheduled to be held on Thursday, has been cancelled as the city police denied permission for it, party sources claimed.
"Since the elections started in West Bengal, central government hatched conspiracies to remove us (from power). I was hurt in my feet so that I don't contest the polls," she said.
BJP general secretary Arun Singh said that during the course of the meet, discussions will be held on farm laws, Aatmanirbhar Bharat and upcoming state polls.
Mitra also said currency demonetisation has led to closure of small industries and left hundreds jobless across the country
Two days after quitting the Congress, former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday.
According to the sources, the meeting will be held at 10 am on Thursday in the chamber of Rajya Sabha LoP.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties, led by the Congress, staged a walkout from both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday, in protest against all states except two being 'ignored' in the budget, an allegation termed 'outrageous' by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamanm, who said all the states never found a mention in any of the previous budgets, including those presented by the Congress.
"In view of the above, the West Bengal government has been requested by MHA to initiate action against the officer and intimate the action taken in this regard," it said.
TMC also mentioned about four locations where it claims Adhikari has lodged anti-social elements.
Banerjee had slammed the BJP for allegedly trying to import AIMIM in Bengal to sharpen the communal polarisation and divide the Hindu-Muslim votes among themselves.
The Bharatiya Janata Party decided to put on hold Shah's proposed rally and the Rath Yatra, saying it will wait for the final order from the high court, which will now hear an appeal by the saffron party on Friday morning.
Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday questioned Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the Union Budget and claimed that the plates of all states except Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were empty in the budget allocation.
National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said notifying the rules for the CAA days before the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections shows the Bharatiya Janata Party is not confident about winning 400 seats in the ensuing polls.
The MP, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a bandage on head, said that Verma led a police contingent which attacked a "peaceful" protest by the BJP over the capture of its party office at Shyamnagar.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Slamming the West Bengal government for packing off controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said it is a "total capitulation" before fundamentalist forces.
With a substantially weakened Left Front and the Congress, political observers say the anti-Trinamool vote will go to the BJP.
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.
Senior BJP leader and former state president of the party, Rahul Sinha, told PTI on Monday that all trains have either left from or would be leaving for their destinations in a few hours' time.
"How dare they attack my car! I kept mum only because the elections are on. Or else I would have seen how big they have grown," Banerjee said at a rally in Goghat.
Claiming that Congress was in "coma" and Bharatiya Janata Party would be unable to form the government after Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said it was time for "like-minded forces" to capture power at the Centre.
These include key constituencies held by Opposition parties such as Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi, Congress) and Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP); Maharashtra's Baramati (Supriya Sule, Nationalist Congress Party); West Bengal's Jadhavpur (Mimi Chakraborty, TMC); Telangana's Mahabubnagar (Srinivas Reddy, TRS) and Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara (Nakul Nath, Congress).
The BJP declared Chandra Kumar Bose, grandnephew of Subhash Chandra Bose, its candidate against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the assembly elections.
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