West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Odisha, is set to meet her counterpart in the neighbouring state, Naveen Patnaik, on Thursday afternoon.
Banerjee lost the Nandigram assembly elections to BJP candidate and her former lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes, the Election Commission said.
Trinamool Congress will not remain in the United Progressive Alliance government if prices of petro products are hiked again, party chief Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday.
According to TMC officials, the party's national general secretary has decided Friday to return to the city, temporarily suspending his ongoing mass outreach campaign for a day or two.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday took a dig at Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee for her decision to support United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, saying it was disappointed at the development and sought to know under what "compulsion" she had taken this stand.
"I am really disappointed with the way the party is functioning. I am fed up with so many allegations of corruption levelled against the party and the government. I also do not support the way the issue of Sandeshkhali was handled," he said while maintaining that the dual issues of corruption and Sandeshkhali were the primary triggers for his decision to quit.
The TMC chief had said that she would never allow the Centre to conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal.
Sources said Rujira had reached Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata with her two children around 7am before being stopped before immigration.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal scam in the state, officials said on Saturday.
United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said he has been making appeals to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee every day asking her to vote for him.
"We are ready to work with any anti-BJP party. This has been our stance whenever the need arose for a big movement against divisive forces from Kashmir to Kanyakumari," CPI-M politburo member Biman Bose told reporters to a question on whether the CPI-M will be with the TMC to prevent the BJP from coming to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she has written to the Centre, seeking permission to visit the strife-torn state of Manipur.
West Bengal minister and veteran Trinamool Congress leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay is all set to vacate the Bhabanipur assembly seat on Friday as party supremo Mamata Banerjee is likely to contest bypoll from the constituency, party sources said.
The Trinamool Congress's candidate selection for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls is expected to prioritise the nominee's winnability, public image and sitting MPs' performance, while also reflecting the internal debate on whether experienced leaders should make way for the younger generation.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh on Sunday said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party had no link with the chit fund company Saradha Group, which has closed shop failing to repay hundreds of depositors' money.
The chief minister's letter will be reached to the dharna manch (dais) of the Trinamool Congress chief on the second day of her party's indefinite agitation at Singur demanding immediate return of 400 acres to farmers unwilling to part with their land. "The contents of the letter will be made known this afternoon," a source in the chief minister's secretariat said.
Communist Party of India - Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Friday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain how Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee continued to be a minister in his government when her party is 'openly' supporting Maoists."I want to ask the prime minister, 'you say that Maoists are a threat to the country's internal security and those supporting these Maoists and intensifying the threat are in your Cabinet, he said.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of entering into a pact with the Communist Party India-Marxist to divide votes of the Trinamool-Congress alliance.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist said that it will field a candidate as those opposed to the TMC and BJP needed an alternative.
"We want a person like Abdul Kalam who is impartial and has a stature," she said.
Despite being in the Opposition in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is 'setting' the agenda for the state government. In the past weeks, the government has taken three major policy decisions for which the Trinamool Congress had been agitating to make a public opinion.
According to reports, the Trinamool Congress workers are staging rallies, holding protests in Kolkata and other parts of the state to protest against the SFI attack on their leaders.
Accusing Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of being an "opportunist", prominent cleric Maulana Barkati on Tuesday asked Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee to be more critical of Modi in order to prove her secular credentials.
Claiming that their activists were under attack from 'Trinamool Congress-led anti-socials', the Left parties on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to take immediate steps to ensure free and fair polls in West Bengal, including ordering the execution of non-bailable warrants against criminals who were 'terrorising' people ahead of the vote.The four parties also alleged that a prominent media group, which they said was 'acting as an official mouthpiece' of Mamata Banerjee'
Bypoll to the Bhabanipur assembly seat in West Bengal, from where chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee plans to contest, would be held on September 30, the Election Commission announced on Saturday.
A member of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning squad, Azad was suspended from the Bharatiya Janata Party for openly targeting the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association in December 2015. He joined the Congress in 2018.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the Trojan horse of the Bharatiya Janata Party and should be kept out of all efforts to cobble up an opposition platform ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged on Wednesday.
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
"Even without her, we have over 60 per cent votes that may go up with others' support and hence we are just not counting on Trinamool," a Congress functionary said on Monday.
BJP protest outside Mamata Banerjee's residence over attack on BJP leader Roopa Ganguly's convoy
Disgruntled West Bengal minister Rabindranath Bhattacharya, who has refused to take up his new ministerial assignment, on Tuesday stoked the 'cut money' debate, urging Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to tackle corruption in party ranks.
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was injured when the helicopter in which she was flying made an emergency landing at the Sevoke air base near Siliguri in the northern part of the state due to bad weather on Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
Jaya said she is in Bengal to campaign for the Trinamool Congress as per instructions of her party president Akhilesh Yadav, who has extended support to Mamata Banerjee in the polls.
It is for the second time in succession that Banerjee powered her party to two thirds majority in the state assembly.
Banerjee is undergoing treatment at the SSKM Hospital for injuries on her left leg after she was allegedly pushed by unknown miscreants during campaign in Nandigram.
In a show of support for Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav's electoral alliance, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee flexed her political muscle in Lucknow.
Former United Progressive Alliance ally Trinanmool Congress on Sunday said West Bengal was "thoroughly deprived" in the reshuffle of the Union council of ministers as none was made a Cabinet minister and the three Congress leaders made ministers of state were there only to "needle" TC.
Seeking intensification of the joint operations against Maoists, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) launched a scathing attack on the Trinamool Congress on Thursday for "playing footsie" with the extremists for electoral gains.
Describing the meeting as 'positive', Banerjee said she discussed the political situation in the country as well as opposition unity with the Gandhis.
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