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.
'When I talk to my colleagues in the Railways, they say 'aadmi toh bohot hai, lekin matlab ka aadmi ek bhi nahi hai (the Railways has a bloated workforce, but doesn't have employees with have the skillsets that matter)'.'
West Bengal CID claimed that two of its teams in New Delhi and Guwahati were restrained on Wednesday morning by the local police in the respective places from carrying out investigations into the cash seizure from three Jharkhand MLAs.
As many as 12 teams were deployed and five teams were on standby in West Bengal while additional teams are also in readiness if required.
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
Banerjee, who also holds the home portfolio, said that the SIT will submit its report to her within 15 days.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a compensation of Rs five lakh to the kin of each of the deceased and Rs one lakh each to the injured from the state government.
Odisha is bracing for heavy rainfall early next week under the impact of a possible cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, which is likely to skirt the state and move towards West Bengal and Bangladesh, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.
Banerjee, a former minister in the Mamata Banerjee government, said he 'repents' for joining the BJP ahead of the assembly elections despite being asked by the West Bengal chief minister not to leave TMC.
Banerjee also said she may not join the dharna being staged by Trinamool Congress MPs in protest against 'attack on party workers' in Tripura, but will surely express solidarity with them.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
Only asymptomatic passengers with confirmed e-tickets will be allowed in these trains and they will have to report at the station at least 90 minutes ahead of the scheduled departure.
'Seven months he has been in jail for no reason.'
Thousands of BJP workers from Kolkata and Howrah began marching towards Nabanna to protest the "worsening" law and order in the state.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to people to maintain peace and calm and urged the protesters to refrain from taking law into own hands.
Assam witnessed violent protests against the Citizenship Act since December 11.
Violent agitations continued to rock parts of West Bengal for second consecutive day on Saturday as people protesting against the amended Citizenship Act set several buses on fire and torched portions of a railway station complex, officials said.
At least 22 more people succumbed to the infection, raising the toll in the state to 10,480.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Assam and West Bengal to lay the foundation stones of several projects.
Three people were also injured in the incident and are undergoing treatment, a police officer said. The BJP denied the charges and said their members were in no way connected to the incident.
Within hours of assuming office, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday initiated a major reshuffle in the police hierarchy, transferring 29 top-level police officers, mostly those who were shifted by the election commission prior to the polls.
"Convict him or acquit him," an anguished Supreme Court observed on non-framing of charges on an accused jailed for 11 years over serial blasts in multiple Rajdhani Express and other trains in 1993.
The projects - Delhi-Varanasi, Mumbai-Nagpur, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Mysore, Delhi-Amritsar, Mumbai-Hyderabad, and Varanasi-Howrah - are expected to cost around Rs 10 trillion.
A portion of the Bardhaman Railway Station building collapsed on Saturday evening, an Eastern Railway official said. Work is on to remove the debris and look for people who might be trapped under it, he said.
An officer on Friday said that the police registered suo motu first information reports also against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee. They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction and assault on government servant and breaching the disaster management act, he said.
A POCSO court in North 24 Parganas district recently sentenced four persons to 20 years in jail and two others to 10 years in connection with the case of the woman who is now 22 years old.
Principal Secretary of the state health department Bibek Kumar, in his letter to the secretary of the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Friday, described the list as "an erroneous assessment" and said Bengal, keeping in view the parameters set by the Centre, has earmarked four "red" zones -- Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore.
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.
Delight family you might visiting abroad with a gift of homemade theplas.
The price will vary depending on the size of the station, but it will be Rs 50 at big stations such as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in Mumbai, a Central Railway spokesperson said.
With Cyclone Phailin set to hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts on Saturday evening, rail, road and air traffic has been badly disrupted in the states.
Shukla in his resignation letter to Banerjee expressed his willingness to "retire" from politics
The cyclone expected to weaken gradually over the next two days.
In two separate attacks, suspected Maoists triggered a blast on the railway tracks in Jharkhand's Giridih district, damaging its fish plates, and also blew up a mobile tower in Hazaribag, the police said.
The ruling TMC in West Bengal was rocked by a fresh bout of desertions on Friday with Banerjee quitting the party and several other leaders rallying behind him.
Calling the political condition prevailing in West Bengal "horrible and frightening", Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar alleged on Tuesday that the people of the state do not have the freedom to exercise their franchise fearlessly.
Protests broke out in some states on Friday, including Delhi's Jama Masjid and stone-petling at policemen in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj and Saharanpur, over the controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad by two now-suspended Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries with demonstrators in Jharkhand injuring a few policemen while authorities in Jammu imposed a curfew in few areas and parts of Kashmir observed a shutdown.
'All Shatabdis and Rajdhanis should be converted to this type of high-speed train.' 'There should be a sleeper version of the train.' 'Right now, there is only a day version of the train.' 'Unless you develop a sleeper version, it will not be possible to replace the Rajdhani.' 'Work on the sleeper version was stopped for some reason. It should be revived now.'
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