The Trinamool Congress leadership on Tuesday asked its member of Parliament Tapas Pal to tender an unconditional apology to people for allegedly threatening to kill Communist Party of India-Marxist workers and have their women raped, a comment for which the party is facing widespread condemnation.
Stating that at least 16 people of different political parties have lost their lives in the post-poll violence in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying unable to digest defeat in the state elections they were sending central ministers to incite unrest in Kolkata.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
Paul, who was in Mumbai to visit his daughter, complained of chest pain at the Mumbai airport during his return to Kolkata and was rushed to a hospital in Juhu but died around 4 am, they said.
Reacting sharply to Banerjee's fulminations, the Congress struck back pointing out that Prime Minster Narendra Modi's and her stand were similar, with one seeking a 'Congress 'Mukt' (Free) India' and the other, an 'Opposition coalition sans Congress'.
Trinamool Congress will go it alone in next month's Assembly election in West Bengal, party supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday said and declared the list of TMC candidates which included sports personalities, actors and journalists.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday discussed the candidature of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, A P J Abdul Kalam and Somnath Chatterjee, floated by the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The chief minister, speaking at her first major political rally after the Lok Sabha polls, also said the party will launch a statewide protest on July 26, demanding return of black money "siphoned off" by the BJP.
Somen Mitra, the one time pillar of the Trinamool Congress and now Congress candidate from Kolkata North constituency, can't help smiling. The SC's order directing the CBI to probe the Saradha scam is the fruit of his hard and lonely battle. On the day when 17 constituencies in the state go to polls, Mitra speaks to Rediff.com's Indrani Roy about the impact of the Saradha scam on the elections and his relationship with his former party chief.
'What did we get out of this agitation? Nothing... Now we feel it was all a mistake. We have no work, and our land has turned infertile. We are living in abject poverty'
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday grilled arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and his alleged associate Arpita Mukherjee who were arrested in connection with the school jobs scam, sources said.
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.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday held Jharkhand and DVC responsible for the current "man made" flood in the southern part of the state and contended that it was caused due to the unplanned and enhanced discharge of water from dams and barrages in the neighbouring state without information.
The Governor invited the 'attention' of Chief Minister Banerjee to the preamble of the Indian Constitution.
Mamata alleged that the BJP and the CPI-M were provoking doctors and giving communal colour to the issue.
Paes, having proved his mettle in tennis courts, now sought to champion the cause of common people as 'I have always wanted to serve the country in one way or the other'.
The war of words between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi hit a new low on Wednesday when the former called the BJP prime ministerial nominee a 'donkey'.
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra's expulsion from the Lok Sabha triggered a political slugfest on Friday, with the opposition calling it a 'betrayal of India's parliamentary democracy' and the Bharatiya Janata Party asserting that it was an 'apt decision' as there was proof of the allegations levelled against her.
Banerjee had on Tuesday confirmed her presence at the ceremony to be held on May 30.
The TMC team went there at the instruction of party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Reacting to the statement, the Congress in Goa accused the TMC of entering the poll fray in the state in order to 'divide secular votes and give mileage to the ruling BJP', and also alleged that Kishor's remarks exposed Mamata Banerjee-led party's agenda.
In a major boost to the party ahead of next year's Assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress on Saturday scored a landslide victory in the newly formed Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, bagging 37 of the 41 wards and winning all the 16 wards in Bally Municipalty under Howarah district.
Banerjee has held five rallies in Kolkata in 11 days against the CAA.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee campaigning in tribal Paschim Medinipur district on Thursday for the coming state election asked "Marxist friends" not to vote for either the CPI-M or Congress, who are "cohorts of the communal BJP".
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the latest episode in the BJP's Mission Bengal.
Ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, Churchill Alemao 'merged' the NCP with the TMC. The 'merger' took place when Mamata Banerjee was in Mumbai talking to NCP supreme leader Sharad Pawar on how to forge Opposition unity!
After his meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Tuesday said there can be no opposition front without the Congress, in a clear message to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her 'no United Progressive Alliance' taunt, even as another ally Nationalist Congress Party asserted it will make every effort to form a broad-based alliance that will also include the Congress.
Making a strong Hindutva pitch at the hustings in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked Trinamool Congress leaders for calling those wearing saffron, sporting tilak and choti as "rakshas", and declared that he does not believe in "seasonal faith".
She alleged that vehicles belonging to VIPs, with tinted glass, are being used to smuggle arms and money into West Bengal, while directing the police to increase 'naka-checking' to prevent such attempts.
The Trinamool Congress MP said he is unable to bear various incidents that are happening in West Bengal.
Ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal on Thursday met the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and alleged that the Border Security Force (BSF) is threatening people in the border areas of the state to cast their votes in favour of a particular political party.
Any erosion in the TMC, may benefit the BJP, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
The impact of the explosion "was so massive" that the factory, which was being run from a residential building, collapsed, the police said.
"The NIA categorically refuted allegations of mala fide in its Bhupatinagar blast case," an agency spokesperson said.
The talk of an anti-BJP front got revived after leaders of various parties and prominent individuals congregated at Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's New Delhi residence last month.
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.
While the Apna Dal said it was 'free to make its own decision', the SBSP went a step ahead asserting that its option to join the SP-BSP alliance.
'Two years ago I told Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi that we have traitors in the Congress.'
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