Sporadic violence was reported on Thursday in the fifth and last phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal covering four districts of north Bengal with 30 per cent voter turnout reported till noon.
The Trinamool Congress on Monday appeared set to sweep the crucial panchayat poll in West Bengal with a huge margin in most of the districts, taking a comfortable lead in gram panchayat in 12 of 17 districts.
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
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.
A blast in New Jaipaiguri in West Bengal has killed four persons and injured seven. The police and the Intelligence Bureau are suspecting the involvement of the dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence funded, Kamtapur Liberation Organisation. The powerful bomb was planted on a cycle.
A day after a Bharatiya Janata Party delegation met President Ram Nath Kovind seeking dismissal of the Mamata Banerjee government over the "political murder" of a party MLA, the West Bengal chief minister wrote a latter to him claiming the saffron party might have presented "distorted facts".
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 19 straight days.
According to the Minority Morcha's state president, Ali Hossain, around 4.5 lakh people from the community have already joined the saffron party.
'In the interim, India will be confronted with anti-India feeling because Sheikh Hasina had India's support.' 'We will have to deal with it, but it will not be a permanent phenomenon.' 'There is substantial goodwill towards India which will stand us in good stead.'
Trinamool Congress on Monday carried out a major organisational reshuffle in the party and inducted several new faces, including some ministers with thrust on toning up the party ahead of next year's crucial panchayat polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi launched a fresh attack on Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Tuesday, saying 'the BJP leader is crossing all limits to mislead people'.
The West Bengal chief minister said no refugee living in the state will be deprived of citizenship. "You have an address, ration card, voter card, driving licence. There is no need to get this new card of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Don't worry, you will always find this didi beside you. Your family is my family. I will not let anybody take away the rights of our people," she asserted.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused NIA officials of attacking villagers in Purba Medinipur district, the BJP hit back at her saying that the attack on the NIA officials is Sandeshkhalli 2.0 orchestrated by the state.
"The NIA categorically refuted allegations of mala fide in its Bhupatinagar blast case," an agency spokesperson said.
"Not a single woman (from Sandeshkhali) has lodged any FIR. It was me who directed the police to lodge a suo motu case. Our block president has been arrested," she said.
"This TMC government is anti-people, anti-democratic and have compromised with national security," Adityanath said.
Results of the panchayat polls indicated a paradigm shift in state politics with the baton of main opposition party passing from the Left to the BJP.
The post-mortem repor said that Roy died due to hanging and no other injury mark was found on his body.
'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.
The release of water from the Chungthang dam led to a sudden increase in water levels up to 15-20 feet high downstream, defence spokesperson Lt Col Mahendra Rawat said.
Businesses and banks in Guwahati were open and vehicles plied the roads but schools and colleges were closed. Stray incidents of clashes were reported in West Bengal.
Home Secretary L C Goyal said 72 deaths were reported from the four states of Bihar -- 56, Uttar Pradesh -- 12, West Bengal -- 3 and Rajasthan --1.
Over 1.03 crore voters will decide the political fate of 306 candidates in this phase.
The Centre has sought a detailed report from the West Bengal government on the circumstances leading to the violence.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The ruling Trinamool Congress held the Bharatiya Janata Party responsible for the blast and alleged that the saffron party was aiming to kill South Dum Dum Municipality chairman and TMC leader Panchu Roy. But the BJP rubbished the charges.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.
"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its implementation got delayed. But as the situation is slowly improving, the work has started. The rules are now being framed and CAA will be implemented very soon. Under this act all the eligible people will definitely get Indian citizenship," Nadda told the social groups, who included Dalits, Gorkhas, Rajbanshis and other tribes.
The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
Swirling floodwaters have paralysed normal life and marooned over 1.20 crore people.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
The TMC, which is yet to fully recover from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll setback, when the BJP's tally soared from two to 18, is apprehensive that the AIMIM may act as "spoiler" in several assembly segments.
The people of West Bengal have lost faith in the state police and therefore their demand for deployment of central forces, Nayak said.
Amid an outcry over the death of a 16-year-old girl who was gang-raped twice and had set herself ablaze, the West Bengal government on Thursday condemned politics over her body and claimed that it had fully cooperated with the bereaved family.
The Congress's share has almost halved, down from 12 in 2014 to six now.
The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday swept the municipal polls in Bengal, capturing four of seven civic bodies and breaking the 10-year-old hold of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in the hills.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
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.
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