A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Among the parties that boycotted the proceedings of the House included the Congress, which was the among the first to walkout, followed by members of the CPI-M, CPI, TMC, NCP, SP, Shiv Sena, RJD, DMK, TRS and AAP.
Lok Sabha on Monday witnessed another low with a member tearing a newspaper and throwing its pieces in the House, drawing strong condemnation from the Chair.
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.
It seems the grand old party is trying to stage a comeback in the state which it ruled at one time, but also to its progeny the Trinamool Congress which has vowed to come to power in Tripura in the 2023 state assembly elections.
Under fire from the opposition on the Union Public Service Commission row, the government on Wednesday decided to convene an all-party meeting on the issue while indicating its unwillingness to postpone the civil services preliminary examination scheduled for August 24.
Ruling out resignation of Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti for her controversial remarks, the government on Wednesday came down heavily on opposition for disrupting Parliament accusing it of 'authoritarianism'.
The eight members -- distributed among the Congress, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party -- were suspended earlier in the day for the remainder of the Monsoon Session over their 'unruly behaviour' during the passage of farm Bills in the Upper House of Parliament.
The Opposition members on Monday strongly raised the issue of religious conversions, and a controversial statement made by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath on the Ayodhya issue and a report that government schools have been asked to observe Good Governance Day on Christmas Day, in the Rajya Sabha.
Congress hopes to field upper caste candidates to eat into BJP voter base while SP-BSP focuses on consolidating Dalit-OBC votes in their favour.
Some lawyers in the Congress argued against upsetting the judiciary. It was a tongue lashing from Sharad Pawar that spurred the Congress and other parties to go ahead with their move.
The Trinamool Congress welcomed the Supreme Court verdict on panchayat polls in West Bengal as a "victory of democracy" and asked opposition parties to apologise to the people of the state.
'For the politics of patronage in West Bengal, it has always been important to have territorial control.'
Sandeshkhali, a village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, has been at the centre of a political storm for nearly a month and has witnessed unprecedented protests over allegations of sexual abuse by scores of women against a local Trinamool Congress leader.
The video also showed protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the video and sought a report regarding the incident from the state home secretary.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Chennai on November 2 and is likely to hold a meeting with her Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin to discuss their strategies for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad made this assertion outside Parliament while speaking to reporters and said the revocation of suspension of the Opposition Rajya Sabha MPs was not a demand, but a 'request'.
The opposition parties termed the order of the inquiry a gimmick to fool the masses and cover up the important evidences in the sting operation.
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.
The first phase of the crucial panchayat polls in West Bengal will begin on Thursday even as the ruling Trinamool Congress kept up its attack against the State E1lection Commission.
'She could have sat down with the students and taken a list of their grievances including their allegations and suspicions.' 'Not all suspicions are true, but you have to listen, you have to let the steam come out.'
Janata Dal-United MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh offered juice to Harivansh to help him break the fast.
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.
The Opposition alleged that without any provocation from the Opposition, "outsiders who were not part of Parliament security were brought in to manhandle the Opposition leaders and members, including women Parliamentarians who were only protesting against the Government's conduct, highhandedness and muzzling of the voice".
Trinamool Congress member of Parliament Tapas Pal tendered an unconditional apology on Tuesday for his threat to kill Communist Party of India-Marxist workers and having their women raped after he was asked by an embarrassed party leadership to do so following widespread outrage.
The event will be significant for the Congress and Trinamool Congress leaderships, cementing the proximity during the winter session of Parliament.
Bengali film star and Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha candidate Dev raked up a controversy by saying that joining election fray is like getting raped, but after facing flak from women's rights activists and opposition parties he apologised for the comment.
In a landmark judgment that delivered a big blow to the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday annulled the electoral bonds scheme, saying it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.
'I think there must be some sort of a nexus between the rioters and a section of police officials which resulted in gruesome killings and arson'
The Congress and Left Front on Thursday finalised sharing of 193 seats of the total 294 in West Bengal assembly with the Left parties getting the lion's share of 101 seats.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said there is no alternative to the Trinamool Congress, and no other party can take its place in the state.
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".
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.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the demonetisation move, the united opposition hit back at the government over common man's suffering.
It will be presented in the Lok Sabha next week in its original form.
'If the Congress is to challenge the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi will have to shed his indifference to Parliament, become more visible and vocal and, essentially, lead from the front,' says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Members of all parties condemned the killings in the name of cow.
Jaitley said the Opposition has been using the zero hour to raise the issue for 'getting footage on TV'.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday elevated her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee as the party's all-India general secretary, the second-most important post in the organisation, a senior leader in Kolkata said.
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