The Centre has asked him to join North Block on Tuesday but it cannot force an officer to join it without the permission of the state administration, Banerjee told a press conference.
Over 84 lakh voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 283 candidates on Thursday, when 35 assembly constituencies go to polls in the eighth and final phase, amid a raging second wave of Covid-19.
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.
'Our study finds that only about 20% of Indians are vegetarians and the rest of the 80% are non-vegetarians or meat-eaters.'
The Narendra Modi wave seems to have reached the Bengal shores, indicated by the more than two-fold increase in the membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party's state unit.
The West Bengal government has taken all precautionary measures to deal with Cyclone Yaas, likely to hit the state on May 26, and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will stay at a control room set up for the purpose to monitor the situation, officials said.
The politicisation of ethnic sentiments in the state has coincided with the ascent of the BJP and increased activities of far right Hindu outfits, which organised rallies and other events on religious occasions such as Ram Navami a festival not very popular in West Bengal- unlike states in north India.
In a first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission had Wednesday ordered campaigning in the nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, instead of 6 pm on Friday, in the wake of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata during Amit Shah's roadshow.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Raju Mahali and Geeta Mahali, who had hosted Amit Shah on April 25 during his visit to the area, on Wednesday joined the TMC in the presence of senior TMC leader and tourism minister Gautam Deb.
Since bodies are still being found from the slush and debris left behind by the river in both the states, the exact casualty count will be clear in the next few days after collating the details, officials said.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
Who owns a recipe, and should one fight over its origins?
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are among the star campaigners of the party for the October 30 bypolls to four Assembly seats in the state, but interestingly, the names of actor-turned-MP Nusrat Jahan and former BJP leader Babul Supriyo, who recently joined the TMC camp do not feature in the list.
Some have been cherry-picked to assert the BJP's supremacy over its allies or, significantly, its leaders who charted an independent course in the recent past.
Scattered incidents of violence, including torching of buses and clashes, occurred and 1,600 people were arrested during the 12-hour bandh.
Wearing his infectious goofy grin, 'Samba Magician' Ronaldinho cast a spell on the football-crazy denizens of Kolkata as his arrival for a two-day visit in Kolkata ushered in an early onset of the Durga Puja festival.
The double mutant variant, also known as B.1.617, is mostly dominating Maharashtra (761), West Bengal (124), Delhi (107) and Gujarat (102).
One person was killed and six others were injured in a clash between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal's Birbhum district, police said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party might conduct the Lok Sabha polls in December itself, claiming that all choppers have been booked by the saffron party for campaigning.
'We cried our hearts out as we saw our huts going underwater. It was hard to believe that I was fast asleep at the same spot just 15-20 minutes ago'
National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said notifying the rules for the CAA days before the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections shows the Bharatiya Janata Party is not confident about winning 400 seats in the ensuing polls.
138 members of Bharat Scouts and Guides from West Bengal, mostly aged between 10 and 15 years, braved their way back to New Jalpaiguri railway station from Sikkim before heading home to Barrackpore near Kolkata to narrate their harrowing experience.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
With normal life thrown out of gear by the region's worst weather disasters, the authorities scrambled in various parts of the state to restore normalcy.
Jha, who had been on run since Wednesday when four people breached security protocol inside and outside Parliament, walked inside a police station in the New Delhi district Thursday night and is now being interrogated by a counter intelligence team, the police source said.
Guha's remark drew a sharp reaction from the BJP, which termed it as an 'insult to the security forces'.
This is possibly the first time Hasina's daughter will be by her mother's side during an official visit to close neighbour and ally India, and analysts believe this to be significant in many ways.
BJP chief J P Nadda on Thursday launched 'Lokkho Sonar Bangla' (target to build golden Bengal) manifesto crowdsourcing campaign to seek suggestions from more than two crore people in West Bengal ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
A delegation of Congress leaders met EC officials and raised several issues, including the use of pictures and large cut-outs of the prime minister in government buildings and colleges and demanded that those be removed to maintain a level-playing field in the upcoming parliamentary election.
'The primary set took over three months to build with 14,000-15,000 workers employed at a time.'
'We ensured that Mallikajaan's Shahi Mahal lived up to its name.' 'One zardosi panel cost around Rs 4 lakh; the one with the kalpavriksh was around Rs 5 lakh.'
State Tourism Minister Bratya Basu said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the Tourism Department to go ahead with the setting up the board.
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
'Why shouldn't we talk against the BJP when it is solely responsible for bringing in these three laws by riding rough over Parliamentary procedures and norms?' 'We will talk against the BJP because it is the sole political party responsible for pushing these destructive farm laws'
The Calcutta high court on Tuesday allowed Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari to visit the restive Sandeshkhali village, while observing that it is surprising that the main accused Shajahan Sheikh has not been arrested by the state police so far.
Every passing day featuring parties within the INDIA alliance sniping at each other at state level is bad publicity for the alliance particularly given the proximity of the 2024 general elections, asserts Shyam G Menon.
Police had to resort to lathi charge to disperse the crowd.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
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