Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said on Sunday that his party would "restore democracy" in the state if voted to power, warning Trinamool Congress cadres to mend their ways or they will have to either visit hospital or crematorium.
Amid the ongoing debate over the Trinamool Congress seeking removal of Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta over his alleged meeting with West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh on Tuesday dropped unannounced at Mehta's residence, but was denied entry.
Struggling to gain political traction on issues of corruption, the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party is shifting its focus to emotive topics such as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in a bid to achieve its target of securing 35 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state.
Addressing a gathering in Basirhat, Khan said: "The intellectual persons who are being paid by the state government and are not supporting this (the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens) are the dogs of Trinamool."
In his four years as state party chief, Dilip Ghosh has put his foot in his mouth repeatedly. This hasn't stopped him from getting elected as a legislator in 2016 and as an MP last year.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
Ghosh suffered minor injuries when a group of women allegedly attacked her when she tried to take one BJP agent inside a polling booth.
TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had addressed a public meeting in Kolkata on March 29.
In the question paper, issued in an exercise book of a Bengali-medium school for Madhyamik aspirants, the paper setter has asked them to identify several places on the map (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (referred to as 'Azad Kashmir' in Pakistan), the place where Gandhiji had first undertaken the Satyagraha movement, and the Chittagong battleground.
"If municipal elections can take place in Hyderabad and Assam, why not here. The situation is worse than Kashmir and is similar to that of Iran and Iraq. Didi (Mamata Banerjee) has proved that West Bengal's law and order is not conducive to go for polls," he said while addressing a party meeting in Kolkata.
Earlier in the day, one person was killed and three were injured after a crude bomb went off in a mango orchard in Murshibabad district, police said.
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.
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.
Polling began at 7 am on Saturday for 44 seats in the fourth phase of the West Bengal assembly elections amid tight security, officials said.
The notice cited Ghosh's alleged remarks that "if someone crosses his limits then you have seen what happened in Sitalkuchi. There will be Sitalkuchi in several places."
'Being a woman chief minister we certainly expect from her some decency that goes well with the culture and tradition of Bengal, and with the values of a Bengali woman'
Former Miss India Pooja Chopra talks about her Bollywood debut in Commando.
West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party president Dilip Ghosh on Friday alleged that the Jadavpur University campus has become a hub of anti-nationals and communists and "our cadres" would conduct a Balakot-like surgical strike to destroy it.
While the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress alleged that the killings were a fallout of the TMC's infighting, the ruling party pointed fingers at the grand old party of India.
The state government, however, has not sent any report as sought by the Union home ministry on "serious security lapses" during Nadda's two-day visit to West Bengal.
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.
As indicated by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA government has already initiated process to make higher allocation in social sector.
He hinted the decision was partly due to losing the ministerial berth and also differences with the state BJP leadership.
Roy said he would wait to see the municipal poll results in Bengal. According to sources close to him, the term 'farewell' doesn't mean that he is leaving the party.
Police said the clash broke out when BJP activists travelling in a mini truck to the rally at Suri had an altercation with the local TMC workers while passing through Simurali in the district.
The Election Commission has barred Banerjee from campaigning for 24 hours from Monday 8 pm for her remarks against central forces and a statement which had alleged religious overtones.
4 EVMs and a similar number of VVPATs were found at the house of a TMC leader in West Bengal's Howrah district, following which a poll official was suspended.
The Trinamool Congress on Monday lost five more sitting MLAs and the control of the Malda Zilla Parishad to the Bharatiya Janata Party as defections continued to rock West Bengal's ruling party ahead of the assembly polls.
The new Lok Sabha will have 300 MPs who have been elected for the first time to the Lower House.
A delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders on Wednesday met Election Commission officials here and alleged that the use of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photo on advertisements of various central schemes and the COVID vaccination certificates, distributed by the Union health ministry, violated the model code of conduct.
According to a schedule of her five-day visit provided by her Trinamool Congress, Banerjee is slated to meet Modi at 4 pm on Tuesday.
He also accused the TMC government of politicising the administration and criminalising the police.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday took a dig at Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's New Delhi visit as she said a 'child can be cajoled into silence' but not an elderly man, noting that she has thrice written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw him from the state.
'Thanks to Mamata's shameless way of wooing Muslims, Hindus in large numbers have started aligning with us,' says Bengal's BJP boss Dilip Ghosh.
The union minister went to the residence of Sanatan Singh at Balijhuri and had lunch there, sitting on the floor of the thatched house.
'We don't know when the BJP tried to induct Sourav Ganguly into the party. Sourav Ganguly is a cricketing legend. Some people are now shedding crocodile tears about the changes in BCCI. Did they have any role when he took over as BCCI president? The TMC should stop politicising every issue.'
The party also announced the names of Milan Ghosh and Sujit Das for Samserganj and Jangipur seats respectively.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
Among the names being mentioned for inclusion as ministers are Tejasvi Surya, the 29-year-old MP from Bangalore South, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, the 35-year-old MP from Ladakh, Locket Chatterjee, the 45-year old MP from Hooghly, and Dilip Ghosh, MP from West Medinipur and president of the BJP's West Bengal unit.
