The spectre of Singur and now its verdict is looming large on the future of many of Bengal's projects, especially the state government's industrial parks that are vacant. As many more episodes await, the question uppermost on everyone's minds is, how long will Singur haunt Bengal?
Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Sunday admitted to the complicity of his partymen in the killing of nine villagers at Netai in January, 2011 during his tenure as Chief Minister of West Bengal, which had caused a nationwide outcry.
Analysts have their doubts how much independence she has as finance minister. As Amit Mitra advises the chief minister, day-to-day work is done by the finance secretary and the chief secretary.
Mass agitations are not particularly uncommon in India. But a mass agitation led by an environment-related issue that has gone out of hand is not something that can be easily recalled.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
The Bengal CM said, The Narendra Modi government has created a situation in the entire country which is worse than Emergency.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday assured farmer leaders led by Rakesh Tikait and Yudhvir Singh of support to their agitation against the new agriculture laws.
'Mamata is synonymous with Bengal, its culture, language, traditions.'
TMC on a roll, wins 13 out of 17 zilla parishads in WB
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O' Brien met the agitating farmers at the Singhu border in the afternoon.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it had not been a correct decision to align with Congress in the 2011 assembly elections and accused the Congress of holding out the threat of the Central Bureau of Investigation "whenever there is a protest against the UPA government".
Ruling Trinamool Congress on Friday staged protest rallies in West Bengal and burnt symbolic copies of the Centre's land ordinance, which it has described as 'black'.
Ironically, the BJP, which seeks to unseat the TMC from power, has taken a leaf out of Mamata Banerjee's strategy of soliciting tinsel town's support towards causes and fielding actors in elections.
As state minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with other functionaries, openly air grievances against the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation, senior leaders are frantically looking for ways to pacify the rebels.
The combined Left parties drew a blank in the polls to the assembly which they had run with an overwhelming majority for 34 long years, with their vote share dwindling to a mere 5.47 per cent in 2021.
'Between now and 2021, Bengal's politics could change irrevocably,' predicts Kanchan Gupta, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
Investors can take heart from the first Cabinet meeting in the second innings.
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 BJP could win only 16 out of 57 seats where Shah campaigned.
West Bengal is yet to implement the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the law that replaced the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, on January 1 this year.
What Roy is planning is not known. Will he side with the BJP, which he calls 'non-communal'? Or will he float a party? Or revive the Nationalist TMC to further his political career?
Trinamool Congress's slogan of 'Satatar Pratik' (symbol of honesty) has been challenged by BJP's slogan, 'Gali, gali mein shor hai, Mamata Banerjee chor hai'.
Allegations of strains on democratic and constitutional institutions across the board, security threats from outside, a greedy Opposition inside, were all a part of the package then as now, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Three persons, including husband of a Communist Party of India-Marxist candidate, were killed on Monday and several others injured in violence during the second phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal where 75 per cent polling was recorded.
The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the red bastion in West Bengal in 2011, was unfazed by the Left-Congress alliance ahead of the assembly polls.
Pulling no punches in her attack against the Bharatiya Janata Party for allegedly pursuing 'political vendetta' against the Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday charged that the Central Bureau of Investigation was being used as a 'political tool' by the National Democratic Alliance government and was functioning as 'a department of the Prime Minister's Office'.
With her trademark cotton sari and rubber slippers and her generous doles in rural Bengal, many describe Mamata Banerjee as "ultra left."
Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time, heading a 42-member ministry.
Why did such a 'socially conscientious' people adapt to cash-for-votes and the like, as fish to water? N Sathiya Moorthy offers an explanation.
The new ordinance on land acquisition will allow land grabbers to deprive millions, destroy agriculture, horticulture, rivers, forests, tree cover and mangroves to extract minerals as well as ground water, without replenishment at a pace that will not leave anything for the next generation, warns activist Medha Patkar.
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
'The Left's decline is now a reality, both nationally and in West Bengal.'Behind it lie: Ideological rigidity and confusion, outdated party programmes... a socially conservative upper-caste leadership,' says Praful Bidwai.
'If Indira Gandhi's Emergency proved anything at all, it established that India would be governed, to the extent it can be governed, democratically or not at all,' says Inder Malhotra.
