Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu on Friday welcomed Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's readiness to sit with the Tatas for finding a solution to the Singur small car factory controversy.
Nominated as the National Democratic Alliance candidate for the Vice President election, Bharatioya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Monday said he would reach out to the non-NDA parties including United Progressive Alliance partner Trinamool Congress for their support.
Sources in the Congress have begun to brief business houses and mediapersons with 'adequate numbers' to prove that the United Progressive Alliance government is in majority, despite Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress pulling out its 19 members of Parliament from the government.
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, never before a force to reckon with in Manipur, has won seven seats, overtaking established political forces like the Manipur People's Party. If Chief Minister Ibobi Singh is not successful in tackling the woes of the hard-working Manipuris, the state may abandon the Congress, says Nitin Gokhale.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Saturday censured veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Anil Basu for using expletives against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee at an election meeting, while the Trinamool Congress demanded his arrest.
The Bal Thackeray-led Shiv Sena today took to the streets to protest the fuel price hike and FDI in retail sector by the Centre and asked the Trinamool Congress and the Nationalist Congress party to withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance government.
Celebrations continued for a second day on Friday after the Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee put up a stunning victory in West Bengal winning 211 of the 294 seats, bettering its 2011 tally of 184 seats. And the mood prevailed at the south Kolkata residence of Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Saugata Roy with his associates distributing sweets and samosas and smearing each other with green gulal. Amid this hullabaloo, Roy squeezed out some time to speak to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com about the victory.
"One party has held a meeting to hold the election in advance, though my information may not be correct," Mamata Banerjee told a meeting of Trinamool Congress without naming the party.
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
Mamata asserted that she will never allow the implementation of CAA in West Bengal.
UPA key ally Trinamool Congress on Thursday strongly opposed allowing FDI in key sectors like retail, insurance and aviation arguing that it would be harmful for the people of the country.
An unholy row has broken out in the Parliament House between the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and its most critical alliance partner, the Trinamool Congress, over a room for the new Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi.
In a sign of political bonhomie with Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Saturday announced withdrawal of all 17 party candidates for the coming Gorkhaland Territorial Administration election.
The victim, in her written complaint to the police, alleged that the security guard did not help her.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi later this week when the issue of Presidential poll candidate may come up for discussion.
Babun Banerjee expressed displeasure over the party re-nominating Prasun Banerjee from Howrah Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Odisha, is set to meet her counterpart in the neighbouring state, Naveen Patnaik, on Thursday afternoon.
Trinamool Congress will not remain in the United Progressive Alliance government if prices of petro products are hiked again, party chief Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday.
Banerjee lost the Nandigram assembly elections to BJP candidate and her former lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes, the Election Commission said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday took a dig at Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee for her decision to support United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, saying it was disappointed at the development and sought to know under what "compulsion" she had taken this stand.
According to TMC officials, the party's national general secretary has decided Friday to return to the city, temporarily suspending his ongoing mass outreach campaign for a day or two.
The TMC chief had said that she would never allow the Centre to conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal.
"I am really disappointed with the way the party is functioning. I am fed up with so many allegations of corruption levelled against the party and the government. I also do not support the way the issue of Sandeshkhali was handled," he said while maintaining that the dual issues of corruption and Sandeshkhali were the primary triggers for his decision to quit.
United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said he has been making appeals to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee every day asking her to vote for him.
"We are ready to work with any anti-BJP party. This has been our stance whenever the need arose for a big movement against divisive forces from Kashmir to Kanyakumari," CPI-M politburo member Biman Bose told reporters to a question on whether the CPI-M will be with the TMC to prevent the BJP from coming to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
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.
Sources said Rujira had reached Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata with her two children around 7am before being stopped before immigration.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she has written to the Centre, seeking permission to visit the strife-torn state of Manipur.
West Bengal minister and veteran Trinamool Congress leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay is all set to vacate the Bhabanipur assembly seat on Friday as party supremo Mamata Banerjee is likely to contest bypoll from the constituency, party sources said.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh on Sunday said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party had no link with the chit fund company Saradha Group, which has closed shop failing to repay hundreds of depositors' money.
The chief minister's letter will be reached to the dharna manch (dais) of the Trinamool Congress chief on the second day of her party's indefinite agitation at Singur demanding immediate return of 400 acres to farmers unwilling to part with their land. "The contents of the letter will be made known this afternoon," a source in the chief minister's secretariat said.
Communist Party of India - Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Friday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain how Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee continued to be a minister in his government when her party is 'openly' supporting Maoists."I want to ask the prime minister, 'you say that Maoists are a threat to the country's internal security and those supporting these Maoists and intensifying the threat are in your Cabinet, he said.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of entering into a pact with the Communist Party India-Marxist to divide votes of the Trinamool-Congress alliance.
"We want a person like Abdul Kalam who is impartial and has a stature," she said.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist said that it will field a candidate as those opposed to the TMC and BJP needed an alternative.
The Trinamool Congress's candidate selection for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls is expected to prioritise the nominee's winnability, public image and sitting MPs' performance, while also reflecting the internal debate on whether experienced leaders should make way for the younger generation.
Despite being in the Opposition in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is 'setting' the agenda for the state government. In the past weeks, the government has taken three major policy decisions for which the Trinamool Congress had been agitating to make a public opinion.
According to reports, the Trinamool Congress workers are staging rallies, holding protests in Kolkata and other parts of the state to protest against the SFI attack on their leaders.
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