Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for seeking en bloc voting by Muslims for the Trinamool Congress and said had his party made a similar appeal to Hindus, it would have been criticised and censured.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hinted that a meeting of opposition leaders may take place in Patna after the crucial Karnataka assembly polls were over as many would be busy electioneering there.
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.
The BJP has invited them to take part in Modi's swearing-in on Thursday as a 'gesture of showing respect to our martyrs', a senior leader of the saffron party said.
She said the Centre is allowing demonetised notes in various sectors like railways, aviation, petroleum, etc but not for state government sectors.
Kick-starting her party's Lok Sabha campaign, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said her party would go it alone in the 2014 polls and renewed her call for a federal front of non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
Take a look at the famous faces who exercised their democratic right.
Roy, on his part, said the decision to name him in the first information report was 'politically motivated'.
The West Bengal CM also said that she wasn't averse to working with the Congress and expressed confidence that a grand alliance of opposition parties is possible.
Banerjee said she was doing so after consulting leaders of major opposition parties and following 'a favourable court order'.
The home ministry dispatched a terse reminder to the West Bengal government on Wednesday to submit a detailed report on the post-poll violence in the state, warning it that the matter will be taken 'seriously' in case it fails to do so, and asked it to take necessary measures to stop such incidents 'without any loss of time', officials said.
'Now that there is an election in the offing, she is repeating the same old promises. Does she think the people of Bengal are fools to fall for her lies?'
'We have got together to save the democracy, Constitution and brotherhood. The country's constitutional institutions are being misused and the country's wealth is being sold out'
She claimed states were not consulted about it, a charge dismissed by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the examination.
While it was no secret that Mamata was upset with Patha Chatterjee for a while as he has hardly been successful in bringing any big-ticket investment, there is a strong buzz that it was the controversy over the HPL bid that finally influenced her decision.
The ATC who handled the flights has been told to undergo 'corrective training'.
Trinmool Congress MP Srinjoy Bose quit his party as well as his Rajya Sabha seat on Thursday.
The idle talk at street corners, cafes and public places since May 23 is that the winds of change are blowing across Bengal.
Banerjee, who lost from the Nandigram constituency in the assembly elections earlier this year, has to win this by-poll to retain the chief minister's post.
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?
The government's briefing is expected to focus on its evacuation mission from Afghanistan as well as its assessment of the situation in the war-torn country in the wake of the Taliban seizing control of almost all key Afghan towns and cities, including Kabul.
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
The pirzada said that the newly launched outfit might contest state elections from all 294 assembly seats.
Banerjee said the TMC would file a defamation case against the CBI and other central agencies for 'harassing and defaming' its leaders.
Gowda said that the Congress will play a crucial role in forging opposition unity in the bid by the alliance to dislodge the BJP from power.
The West Bengal on Thursday became the sixth state to pass a resolution against the three contentious farm laws enacted by the Centre, even as the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party staged a walkout from the assembly amid 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans.
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported on Tuesday in some areas where voting is underway in the third phase of the West Bengal assembly elections, even as the overall situation by and large remained peaceful with 34.71 per cent turnout recorded till 11 am, officials said.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
The remarks by the BJP leaders came as 17 opposition parties resolved to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly to defeat the saffron party and work with flexibility by setting aside their differences. They dubbed the planned alliance as "unholy and opportunistic".
A G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu describing her position as 'President of Bharat' triggered massive debate on Tuesday, with the opposition alleging that the government is planning to drop India and stay with just Bharat as the country's name.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention on Wednesday in the alleged "whimsical" functioning of the railways in sending Shramik Special trains to West Bengal and urged the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre not to pursue politics when the state is battling a dual crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic and trail of destruction left behind by Cyclone Amphan.
Shortly after arrest, BJP state headquarters in Kolkata was attacked allegedly by members of TMC student wing.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
The Trinamool Congress on Monday hinted that the winter session of Parliament is set to be a stormy one, as opposition parties would do all that it takes 'to stop India from turning into an elected autocracy'.
"It will throw some light on the investigation," he said.
Criticising the saffron party for "undermining democratic values" in the country, the chief minister said, "Democracy exists in Bengal but it is under threat in several other parts of the country."
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukul Roy's return to the Trinamool Congress evoked mixed reactions in the saffron camp on Friday, with its state unit president Dilip Ghosh asserting that the move will have no impact on his organisation, and former MP Anupam Hazra claiming that 'lobby politics at play is adversely affecting the party'.
What some of our leaders were up to on Monday, December 12.
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