The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday carried out simultaneous raids at the houses of around a dozen people, including two ministers, in connection with its investigation into the teacher recruitment scam and seized huge amounts of cash.
The home minister called up the chief minister to express serious concern over the reports of large-scale violence.
'Modi should arrest Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra and Parvesh Sharma.' 'These leaders were instigating mobs and spreading hatred and they must be thrown in jail.' 'I had seen dreams of a new India under Modi, but now I am disillusioned with him.'
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed the director general of police to instruct all the superintendents of police to take strong action against those who carried arms in the rallies.
BJP president J P Nadda drew a parallel between the post-poll result violence in West Bengal with the bloodshed during India's Partition, while his colleagues compared the Trinamool Congress with Nazis, as the saffron party's leaders protested in different cities on Tuesday against attacks targeting its workers in the state.
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.
Four persons have been arrested so far for their alleged involvement in the case involving the trafficking of at least 17 children.
"This TMC government is anti-people, anti-democratic and have compromised with national security," Adityanath said.
'She has just one objective. To win the next election. Nothing else matters.'
She said the prime minister neither asked how West Bengal is handling the COVID situation and nor did he enquire about the stock of vaccines or oxygen.
West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief Dilip Ghosh on Saturday said that the party has to fulfil its long-cherished mission of winning the state not only to expand its ideological footprint but also to secure India's eastern borders, which have turned into a 'transit point for terror elements' trying to create unrest in the country.
Video footage of the incident showed Supriyo standing on the footboard of a vehicle and a stone landing on his chest.
Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim, on his part, gave assurances that normalcy would be restored in a week, as government officials were working round the clock to improve the situation.
The TMC chief has been complaining for long alleging that her rivals have brought in goons from other states to intimidate voters.
The rupee on Thursday closed at its all-time low of 78.32 (provisional) against the US dollar as strong American currency and persistent foreign fund outflows weighed on investor sentiments. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 78.26 and finally settled at its all-time low 78.32, unchanged from its previous close. On Wednesday, the rupee declined by 19 paise to settle at an all-time low level of 78.32 against the US dollar.
In a tweet, Ganguly said the law should take its own course.
The BJP has identified West Bengal as a priority state for the upcoming national elections and Shah has set a target of 22 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukul Roy's return to the Trinamool Congress evoked mixed reactions in the saffron camp on Friday, with its state unit president Dilip Ghosh asserting that the move will have no impact on his organisation, and former MP Anupam Hazra claiming that 'lobby politics at play is adversely affecting the party'.
If the TMC doesn't stop violence, then the children of TMC workers would become orphans, he said.
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.
Mirza was produced before a special CBI court in Kolkata, which remanded him in the central probe agency's custody till September 30.
The video also showed protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the video and sought a report regarding the incident from the state home secretary.
Sporadic post-poll violence continued on Tuesday in West Bengal claiming several lives as chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked officials to act decisively and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang up Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to express anguish over the law-and-order situation.
By refusing to follow the pack and remain politically correct, Aamir Khan has paid a price. A fascinating excerpt from Shobhaa De's new book, Insatiable.
"I appeal to everyone to maintain peace. I hope to be back on the field in the next few days," Banerjee said.
Having failed its litmus test, the Bengal's ruling party is back to square one, trying to draw up a fresh strategy ahead of the polls in Meghalaya and Tripura.
'Mamata is campaigning hard and not giving the BJP a walkover.'
In the letter to the BJP, the West Bengal government said, "The areas proposed to be covered by the yatra are, because of publicity and propaganda, gradually turning into communally sensitive pockets. Intelligence reports indicate that public perception is that the religious overtones of the yatra will be turned into communal propaganda."
Mamata took to Facebook and wrote that "some BJP supporters are trying to spread hatred ideology through one section of media -- so-called BJP media and so-called fake video, fake news, misinformation and disinformation to create confusion and to suppress truth and reality."
'It doesn't help to transpose the Hindi heartland model on Bengal. Bengalis don't understand its dynamics. They won't comprehend the impact of Modi's dip in the Ganga because Bengal's political culture is different. Even in the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrams, Christ is worshipped on Christmas. It's difficult to polarise Bengal religiously'
The rupee weakened by 14 paise to close at a new lifetime low of 79.59 against the US dollar on Tuesday as a strong greenback overseas and persistent foreign fund outflows continued to weigh on investor sentiment. This comes a day after the RBI announced measures for international trade settlement in rupees. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened weak at 79.55 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 79.53 and a low of 79.66.
The BJP's message is that the past must be reinvented as creatively as imagination allows, states Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The Trinamool Congress MP said he is unable to bear various incidents that are happening in West Bengal.
'I have interacted with Muslim women in rural Bengal, they are scared of the BJP.'
The ruling Trinamool Congress held the Bharatiya Janata Party responsible for the blast and alleged that the saffron party was aiming to kill South Dum Dum Municipality chairman and TMC leader Panchu Roy. But the BJP rubbished the charges.
The Rajya Sabha MP, who is also a spokesperson of West Bengal's ruling party, was asked to appear before a CBI team in the first week of August, officials said on Friday.
She also hit out at the government for posting retired bureaucrats, who she alleged were its 'yes men', as head of institutions.
The PM's visit comes at a time when West Bengal has been witnessing widespread protests against the contentious Citizenship Act.
The BJP has decided to revamp the organisation by rewarding efficient party workers and leaders and remove several turncoats from local and district levels.
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