This is a complete betrayal of the mandate of the people of the Sagardighi Assembly constituency, Ramesh said on Twitter.
IMD Director General Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that 'Yaas' is likely to intensify into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Tuesday evening and Chandbali is likely to witness the maximum damage caused by it.
Despite the hope that lessons will be learnt, the next accident invariably shows that nothing has been learnt -- or if learnt, they have been ignored, observes Prosenjit Datta.
The Delhi police has arrested three more people in connection with the communal clashes in Jahangirpuri, including a key "conspirator and executor" who was nabbed from West Bengal, officials said on Thursday.
Nandigram, 126 km south of Kolkata, is Suvendu Adhikari's bastion, where he has vowed to defeat Mamata Banerjee by 50,000 votes or quit politics.
Alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party was bringing in goons from outside to stop people from exercising their franchise in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged women to 'confront the hoodlums with ladle, spatula' and other cooking utensils.
The EC concluded that Banerjee sustained injuries due to lapse on part of her security in charge.
The system moved north-northeastwards at 20 kmph in the last six hours and is over west-central Bay of Bengal, 90 km from Gopalpur, 120 km from Puri and 210 km from Paradip, the weather office said in its 11.30 am bulletin.
Hundreds of local people and party activists accompanied her, shouting the slogan of 'Mamata Banerjee Zindabad!'.
The weather system moved west-northwestward and concentrated into a depression on Saturday at 8.30am, close to west of Andaman Islands, the bulletin said.
A large voter turnout of more than 80 per cent despite sporadic incidents of violence and allegations of vote fraud on Thursday marked the second phase of West Bengal assembly polls.
Earlier, the manifesto was scheduled to be released on March 11. However, the release of the manifesto was cancelled following an alleged attack on TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Her campaign in the high-stakes constituency will begin at 11 am on Monday with an 8-kilometre roadshow from Khudiram More to Thakurchowk in Nandigram Block 2, followed by a public meeting in Jansabha Boyal II.
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.
Jahan, who was recently campaigning for TMC candidate Narayan Goswami at Guma in Ashoknagar segment, suddenly refused to take part in the roadshow notwithstanding party workers' fervent pleas to stay back.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
Veteran Trinamool Congress MP Sisir Adhikari -- father of BJP heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari -- joined the party in Egra in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders of the party.
The case was lodged under IPC sections 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), a senior police officer of the Purba Medinipur district said.
Over 1.54 crore voters in the eastern states of West Bengal and Assam will exercise their franchise in the 1st phase of polling
The Election Commission of India (ECI) might punish police personnel in charge of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's security for a lapse leading to her injury during campaigning in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district, a senior election official said.
One person died "accidentally" when he had gone out fishing, she said.
'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.
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.
The BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.
'It is very likely to move nearly northwards for next few hour and recurve slowly north-northeastwards along Narsapur, Yanam, Kakinada, Tuni and Visakhapatnam coasts during noon to evening on Wednesday and emerge into west central Bay of Bengal off North Andhra Pradesh coasts by night,' the India Meteorological Department said in its national bulletin.
The 6 am to 6 pm shutdown call evoked a mixed response as the state government engaged its entire machinery to ensure that normal life remained unaffected.
Hundreds of people complained that they had to go without food and sleep in the aftermath of cyclone, which has wreaked havoc in Bengal, as their homes lay inundated amid heavy showers that continued to pummel several parts of the state.
The cyclonic storm is likely to move nearly westwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh-south Odisha coasts between Kalingapatnam and Gopalpur around Sunday evening, the Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD said.
India's largest private port operator Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ) Ltd has emerged as the highest bidder for the West Bengal government's greenfield deep-sea port project at Tajpur in a neck-to-neck fight with JSW Group, a source said on Friday. APSEZ and Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group were the only two entities that took part in the financial bid round, though there were more port and logistics majors who had expressed initial interest in the estimated Rs 7,000-crore project in Purba Medinipur district. "APSEZ is the highest bidder, offering a share of 0.25 per cent of gross revenue. "It was marginally higher than the second bidder who offered 0.23 per cent," a senior government official said, without wanting to be named.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
Addressing a rally in Paschim Medinipur, the Trinamool Congress supremo claimed that BJP leaders "arrive here in choppers and planes from outside with bagful of cash to lure voters and loot votes" just ahead of elections.
Branding Trinamool Congress rebels as 'traitors' like Mir Jafar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party for fielding the turncoats in the polls leaving saffron party old-timers shed tears.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday stirred fresh controversy by saying 'ego prevailed over public service' on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee skipping Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting to review post-cyclone damages on May 28.
According to the sources, he wrote to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee apprising her of his decision to resign from the party's primary membership.
The Met Department has predicted light to moderate rainfall across parts of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha with the probability of the severe cyclonic storm 'Asani' recurving.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination for Nandigram assembly seat, where she will take on her former protege and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari and exuded confidence of winning it saying she has never returned empty-handed from the land of anti-farm land acquisition movement.
The Trinamool Congress chief has slight fever and has been shifted to aspecial ward at the hospital's VVIP Woodburn Block soon after the MRI at the Bangur Institute of Neurosciences, he added.
Suvendu Adhikari, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate against Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram, Monday said he has sought rejection of the nomination of the West Bengal chief minister for not declaring six criminal cases against her while filing her papers.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has found the report submitted by the West Bengal government on the alleged attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram on March 10 as 'sketchy' and asked Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay to elaborate it, a poll official said.
Protests were held in different parts of Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Birbhum, South 24 Parganas, Jalpaiguri districts, and Trinamool Congress supporters briefly blocked roads in some areas.
