Six persons, including a woman, were killed and 18 were injured in violence and CRPF firing in the fourth phase of the West Bengal panchayat elections on Monday. Polling in four districts saw a voter turnout of 25 per cent.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
'The TMC forgets that if people don't stand by you, your party will never win.'
Thousands of BJP workers from Kolkata and Howrah began marching towards Nabanna to protest the "worsening" law and order in the state.
Rediff.com's Indrani Roy tracks the developments in West Bengal where 17 Lok Sabha seats are polling in the last phase.
With the dust yet to settle down on Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Tapas Pal's incendiary comments, another leader Arup Chakraborty on Tuesday asked party workers to kill those who intruded into their homes at night.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the assembly polls next year, asserted that the Trinamool Congress' entry into Goa "appears to be an imposition from the top that is based in West Bengal" and said he does not know the Mamata Banerjee-led party's motive in trying to start a unit in Goa by "encouraging defections" from other parties.
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.
AAP is working on its new strategy to build a strong organisational set-up with leaders from all sections of society, reports Nitin Kumar.
Hours after quitting as the MLA of the West Bengal Assembly, Rajib Banerjee on Friday resigned from the primary membership of the Trinamool Congress, intensifying speculation that he might soon switch over to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
Sources in various parties suggest that two lakh votes of the Patel community, locally known as OBC kurmi, for which mother-daughter led Apna Dal (S) and Apna Dal (K) are competing and over one lakh of OBC Rajbhars would be crucial in deciding the outcome of the assembly seats in Varanasi.
Be it Assam, Haryana or Delhi, the Congress is facing one crisis after another regarding its Rajya Sabha nominations, reports Renu Mittal.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday called for movement against Narendra Modi government at the Centre in view of rising prices and said the Bharatiya Janata Party would not be able to emerge a major political force in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state.
Hemmed in by barricades and police and paramilitary swarming all over the place, the troubled Jahangirpuri on Friday showed signs of returning to normalcy, with the local peace committee calling for communal harmony and members of the warring communities embracing each other, agreeing to let bygones be bygones.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
Three persons were killed, while three were injured and at least five houses were set on fire when Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters fought a gun duel at Makra village in Birbhum district on Monday.
The module was also planning to carry out targeted killings in India and was in the advanced stage of procuring arms, including automatic rifles and pistols, ammunition and explosives to carry out the attacks, he said.
The BJP doesn't want to focus entirely on an anti-Mamata campaign.
The SIT has been constituted and has been directed to complete the probe within a month, Shah said.
The Chinese community in the city is one of the largest in the country and is apprehensive that the escalation of the conflict between the two Asian giants would hamper their lives and livelihood.
Although the TMC, which controls nearly 80 per cent of the state's panchayats, has been at the receiving end of the public ire, the opposition BJP and the CPI-M have also faced protests in some areas over allegations of fraud related to the 'Amphan' aid delivery.
'When an individual becomes authoritarian, you can overthrow the individual easily. 'When the system becomes authoritarian, whoever challenges the system will be called a criminal or an anti-national.'
The politics of polarisation became part of the political landscape of the national capital after the Batla House encounter.
The overall average till 5 pm was 84.24 per cent.
'The Shaheen Bagh model of bullets and biryani won't work. The RSS looked at a template that would play to Bengali pride and harp on the state's development. Mamata's slogan to defeat the Left Front was 'Bengal awake and arise'. She promised to check the flight of capital from Bengal to far-flung states and usher in a renaissance. The RSS wants the BJP to pitch this line because it feels Mamata hasn't delivered on her promises.'
Khardah is no ordinary constituency. It is the electoral battleground of two economists-turned-finance ministers.
A CBI team on Tuesday met the family members of the 19-year old Dalit victim in the gangrape and murder case in Bulgarhi village in Hathras and examined the crime scene, officials said.
As the West Bengal chief minister was busy containing the fallout of an internecine feud in her TMC following a rebellion by a redoubtable Suvendu Adhikari, the Centre shot off a fresh letter to her government to immediately relieve three IPS officers for central deputation.
Tribals constitute 7-8 per cent of the state's population, and are a deciding factor in 47 assembly seats and seven Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the Junglemahal districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Jhargram in southern Bengal and Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar in the north.
Stunned by the sudden saffron surge, daggers seems to have been drawn in the Trinamool Congress camp with local leaders blaming those holding top party posts for their "lack of foresightedness" and "arrogant approach" as primary reasons behind the poor poll show.
A youth was arrested in Malda district of West Bengal on the charge of making a derogatory remark against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook.
Security was beefed up at all BJP offices throughout the state following the violence which erupted after the candidate list was announced, official sources said.
While the first house has been rented for a year, according to neighbours, the other house has been rented for six months. Both houses are located at a distance of approximately 100 metres from each other in the Reyapara area.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in the state, officials said on Saturday.
Stalin said one cannot and should not decide the mood of the entire country based on the results of one state elections.
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.
The BJP can't be sure if it should celebrate that the old rival is fading or worry that new ones are rising. Because the last thing the BJP wants to see is alternatives rising, if only to the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
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