All eyes are on battleground Nandigram that is goin to the polls on Thursday with the chief minister engaged in a fierce contest with her protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP.
'I am happy to join the BJP and will work as a party soldier'
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the home ministry's protection largesse.
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.'
Those trying to use my father to serve their political interests should be ashamed of themselves, Mukul Roy's son said.
'Mamata needs to address the anger and resentment among various sections of the Hindu community because low-scale communal violence has always paid richer electoral dividends for the BJP.'
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.
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.
Although no fresh arrests were reported in the case, the Central Bureau of Investigation continued with its questioning of top officials of the RG Kar Hospital.
Banerjee had moved the high court claiming she apprehended that she may not get justice from the judge due to his alleged BJP links.
Amid the political blame game over Bengal's potato ban, which led to shortages in Jharkhand and Odisha, Uttar Pradesh farmers are the unlikely winners.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
The bypolls were held in six constituencies - Naihati, Haroa, Medinipur, Taldangra, Sitai (SC), and Madarihat (ST) - following the resignation of MLAs who had vacated their assembly seats after securing victories in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In yet another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, as senior leader of the state's ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the 'beginning of the saffron party's end' in the state.
The Union home ministry has initiated disciplinary action against Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal and a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) for allegedly maligning the office of the West Bengal Governor by promoting and spreading canards, a central government official said.
Over the last few months, Dutta has been vocal about his opposition to election strategist Prashant Kishor and the way he was handling party affairs.
The Enforcement Directorate has arrested West Bengal minister Jyotipriyo Mallick in a money laundering case linked to an alleged multi-core ration distribution scam in the state, official sources said on Friday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held the core group meeting of five states on Saturday at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
A woman who had suffered burns in the petrol bomb attack in Bogtui village in Birbhum district last week died in a hospital on Monday, raising the toll to nine, a police officer said.
Though she looked uncomfortable, the feisty TMC leader continued to stand being held by the two TMC leaders on the stage and joined others in singing the national anthem.
"You are repeatedly talking about 70-30 ratio. What are you doing? If you are trying to practise divisive politics here, it will not work. I do Chandipath before stepping out of home every day," she said, before going on to recite the Sanskrit shlokas.
Roads around the 19th century iconic Howrah Station resembled a battleground on Tuesday, with brickbats aimed at police personnel flying thick and fast, and drenched protesters hit by water cannons limping to the safety of nearby alleyways and shops.
Sporadic incidents of violence and allegations of booth jamming marred the voting process in the second phase.
It is noteworthy that, rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Suvendu Adhikari formally tendered his resignation to party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday.
What some of our leaders were up to on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.
Banerjee, who is staging a two-day sit-in to protest alleged discrimination by the Centre against the state, had on Wednesday in a change of stance urged all political parties in the country to unitedly fight the Bharatiya Janata Party in next year's Lok Sabha election.
Daily life was partially affected in West Bengal on Wednesday due to a 12-hour shutdown called by the Bharatiya Janata Party, protesting the police action against demonstrators during a march to the state secretariat.
Senior police officials said they received a complaint and are looking into it.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari objected to Roy's elevation, arguing that the MLA, who had crossed over to the ruling Trinamool Congress last month after winning the polls on a BJP ticket, cannot be considered a legislator of the saffron camp.
According to TMC sources, the chief minister had called Dhankhar from a polling booth at Boila in Nandigram constituency, where she is pitted against her protege-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and alleged that supporters of her party were not being allowed to cast votes by saffron camp workers.
The judge refused to comment on it, stating that he would address all inquiries after submitting his resignation.
'Although there is a visible dent in TMC's urban votes, especially among women, the CPI-M and the BJP are unlikely to benefit from this'
After meeting party leaders in the area, Majumdar went straight to Sandeshkhali police station and later started a sit-in outside it.
Saha, an MLA from the Burwan constituency, was being questioned by the CBI since April 14 in connection with the case as searches went on at his house in connection with the illegal recruitments in state sponsored and aided schools, they said.
As results pour in for the four states -- West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam -- and one Union Territory -- Puducherry - here's a glimpse at the leaders who are trailing and those who are leading.
The resolution under Rule 169 was tabled in the assembly, proposing to observe Poila Baisakh, as "Bangla Diwas" and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol (Bengal's soil, Bengal's water) as the state song.
The Opposition on Tuesday termed the Union Budget as a 'kursi bachao budget' driven by political compulsions and claimed that it ignored opposition-ruled states in a bid to 'appease' Bharatiya Janata Party's allies.
Dhankhar in his strongly worded two-page letter dated January 18 said that this was the 'last opportunity' given to him to provide his response in the matter.
The Bharatiya Janata Party surprised many with its latest list of Lok Sabha candidates for West Bengal, nominating a protester from Sandeshkhali for the Basirhat constituency and changing the seats of its two incumbent MPs -- the party's former state chief Dilip Ghosh and ex-Union minister Debasree Chowdhury.
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