The Congress party, which seems to be short of the numbers to shepherd the Lokpal bill though the Rajya Sabha, is trying desperately to avoid voting on the bill in the upper house as the debate over the bill winds down in Parliament on Wednesday evening.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar Wednesday said he will not tolerate any insult to Parliament and the post of vice president which he holds and expressed deep anguish over a Trinamool Congress MP mimicking him in the Parliament complex and a Congress leader videographing the act.
The Pal-led committee is currently on a tour of five states to speak to various stakeholders though opposition members have boycotted it.
In a blow to the prestige of the saffron brigade, Bharatiya Janata Party's national vice president Mukul Roy along with son Subhranshu, rejoined the Trinamool Congress on Friday, with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other leaders of the state's ruling party welcoming the prodigal back to the fold.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday filed a defamation case against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the Calcutta high court, a day after she said that women complained to her saying that they were afraid to visit the Raj Bhavan because of the activities there, a source said.
'Most senior Congress leaders in Assam have a secret understanding with the BJP.' 'They are hobnobbing with the chief minister for their self-interest.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
Chowdhury said the schedule of the yatra was submitted to the state administration long ago.
The committee headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar is meeting later on Thursday to adopt its draft report in what is likely to be hotly contested by opposition members of the panel.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Hours before the counting for West Bengal assembly polls, four Trinamool workers were on Thursday injured when some unidentified men hurled bombs at the party office in Titagarh area of North 24 Parganas district.
A final call will be taken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday.
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.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted that she did not threaten junior doctors at state-run hospitals, who have been continuing cease-work for 21 days now to protest against the alleged rape and murder of a woman medic. Addressing a rally organised by the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, Banerjee had on Wednesday urged the agitating junior doctors of Bengal to urgently consider returning to duty and said she doesn't want to lodge first information reports (FIRs) against the striking doctors in consideration of their future careers.
With the all-party meetings called by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla producing no breakthrough to end the deadlock in Parliament, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi accused opposition parties of repeatedly 'insulting' Dhankhar.
Modi's visits in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls come amid an intense political row involving the BJP and the state's ruling Trinamool Congress after several women in Sandeshkhali accused the regional party's strongman Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters of "land-grab and sexual assault".
18 leaders from 14 parties said it is unfortunate that the government has 'unleashed a misleading campaign to malign the combined opposition' and blaming it for the continued disruption of Parliament proceedings.
Opposition parties will hold the next meeting of their 26-member INDIA coalition in Mumbai on August 25 and 26, sources said on Thursday.
'This nation depends on the Union government for its safety, security and their development, but look at the state of affairs
This will be the second all-party meeting called by the government to discuss the COVID-19 situation since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Modi said that Congress' tally in the Lok Sabha polls will be an "all-time low"
Despite severing of ties between the two parties, the Trinamool Congress hasn't put up any candidate for the Jangipur bypoll against Congress nominee Abhijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee.
The Trinamool Congress on Friday secured absolute majority in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, winning 163 seats and leading in 23 others as results of 264 seats have been declared so far.
Several opposition parties have claimed that the mandate of 2024 Lok Sabha elections was against the ruling haratiya Janata Party, even though it was able to form the government with support of other parties.
TMC's Dola Sen and Mausam Noor were there at the site till midnight.
Around 25 buses carrying Trinamool Congress volunteers set out from Kolkata on Saturday for the planned protest programme in Delhi on October 3 against the alleged withholding of funds by the Centre, party leaders said.
"Last time I stood, I was not allowed to speak. The ruling party paid a very heavy price for throttling the voice of one MP," she said, referring to her suspension in the last session.
There is a strong possibility of opposition parties coming together to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday, stressing that he has had good talks with them and many will join hands gradually.
Eleven persons were injured in a clash between the Trinamool Congress and Congress party workers at Sabong in West Midnapore district as the first phase of panchayat polls began on Thursday in West Bengal. In another incident, senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Surya Kanto Mishra was involved in an altercation with local Trinamool Congress supporters outside a polling booth at Khadurdah gram panchayat area in West Midnapore district.
In the all-party meeting on Tuesday, Opposition parties demanded discussions on price rise, unemployment and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota among other issues, sources said.
During the Zero Hour of the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Anurag Thakur tried to corner the Leader of Opposition and Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi, by alleging that he has not spoken about ensuring the safety of minorities in Bangladesh.
The TMC released a video, in which a man, claimed to be a BJP mandal president in Sandeshkhali, was heard saying that leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly "Suvendu Adhikari is behind the whole conspiracy".
Reaching out to the Trinamool Congress which has till now remained silent on backing his candidature, United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee has written to Trinamool MPs appealing for their support.
Twelve of the 17 Congress MLAs in the Meghalaya Assembly on Thursday joined the Trinamool Congress, dealing a body blow to the grand old party in the northeastern state, their leader and former chief minister Mukul Sangma said.
Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday questioned Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the Union Budget and claimed that the plates of all states except Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were empty in the budget allocation.
Trinamool Congress is the second highest recipient of political donations through electoral bonds.
The Congress on Friday welcomed the statements of opposition leaders condemning Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lok Sabha and said it was now time for the party to take on the job of building the opposition unity in a "systematic way".
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
Ramesh, however, said it was too early to talk about all this right now as the Congress' first priority was the upcoming elections in Karnataka and the string of state polls this year.
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