Claiming Banerjee has been made aware that Justice Kausik Chanda, who is hearing her plea, was 'an active member of the Bharatiya Janata Party' and since the adjudication of the election petition will have political ramifications, it was prayed that the matter be assigned to another judge by the Acting Chief Justice, who is the master of roster.
Sporadic incidents of violence and allegations of booth jamming marred the voting process in the second phase.
After big win in Bihar, the BJP is likely to push harder in Tamil Nadu, where the DMK government and the uneasy BJP-AIADMK alliance are preparing for a tense election filled with seat-sharing fights, changing alliances, and the unpredictable entry of Vijay's TVK party, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The meeting took place in the backdrop of recent spat between West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Manas Bhuiyan and a number of TMC leaders on the Rajarhat land issue.
Posters projecting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as an 'outsider' surfaced in Nandigram on Wednesday, the high-profile constituency from where the Trinamool Congress supremo filed her nomination for the assembly polls.
Though senior TMC leader Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State for Urban Development, told the media afterwards that 'the decision to withdraw support was a unanimous one', our sources in the party had a different tale to tale.
The decision of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee not to contest the West Bengal assembly polls reflects her "weakness", Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury said on Saturday.
The decision followed reports from New Delhi that senior party leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay was being considered for induction in the Cabinet against Mamata's wishes.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee visited ailing Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu in a hospital in Kolkata on Saturday evening and said she was praying for the speedy recovery of the 95-year-old leader.
Dhankhar in his letter claimed that the state of governance in the state was 'cliff hanging' and had been further strained by the barbarity witnessed in the Birbhum killings.
'She could have sat down with the students and taken a list of their grievances including their allegations and suspicions.' 'Not all suspicions are true, but you have to listen, you have to let the steam come out.'
The Congress plans to ensure that even if its candidates fail to register a win in the Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, the benefit should go to the Left Front and not to friend-turned-foe Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Renu Mittal reports.
In a surprise statement, Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the Congress has announced that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is not their Presidential candidate, comments that came shortly after a Congress spokesperson suggested he is too "valued" to be spared.
A former Indian Police Services officer, who lodged an FIR against Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and was considered very close to the Left Front government during Jyoti Basu's tenure, is among five former police officers contesting the West Bengal assembly polls on Trinamool Congress tickets.
The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday blamed the Communist Party of India-Marxist for the violence at Bamunghata in South 24 Parganas district with a party minister saying that the Marxist party would not have existed had not the TMC given a call for change.
In the absence of Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Rajya Sabha, a Bahujan Samaj Party member described her junior E Ahammed as a "duplicate minister" on Friday.
A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's attack, the Congress on Sunday reached out to its ally saying there was need for "better communication" with Trinamool Congress and the two could rebuild trust by ironing out "disagreements" within closed doors.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee showed "political immaturity" in moving a no-trust motion against the UPA-II government with just 19 MPs in her fold, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said on Friday.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Congress, accusing it of trying to help Communist Party of India-Marxist in the coming civic polls in West Bengal and virtually compared its United Progressive Alliance partner to collaborators of Pakistani army during Bangladesh liberation war.
A combative Trinamool Congress sent a terse message to the Congress on Monday night saying it was "mentally prepared to quit" the United Progressive Alliance government and should not be given any "indirect threat".
The TMC would field one candidate for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Haasan said his party would extend full support to him.
It seems as if the government is spending more time fighting its allies than the opposition. In particular, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has become a big headache for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, with sources saying that the Trinamool Congress leader has gone into opposition mode and is challenging most of the proposals put forward by the government.
Draped in black shawls, Trinamool Congress MPs on Monday staged a protest outside Parliament House against the arrest of West Bengal minister Madan Mitra in the Saradha chit fund case, accusing the Centre of misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation.
An MP from Baharampur since 1999 and the reigning Pradesh Congress president of West Bengal, this was perhaps Chowdhury's toughest electoral challenge which came in the form Pathan, the non-resident TMC candidate.
Top Tata executives do not attend swearing-in despite invite.
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