However, a few defectors, who joined the BJP, got the better of their TMC rivals, including Suvendu Adhikari who emerged as a proverbial giant slayer, by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee albeit by a narrow margin.
What some of our leaders were up to on Monday, December 12.
The two-member commission will be headed by former Calcutta high court Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Bhimrao Lokur is its other member.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said she had suggested to the Congress that an advisory council comprising prominent personalities from civil society be set up to give a direction to the opposition, but rued that the plan did not materialise.
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.
The three-member TMC delegation, led by state minister Partha Chatterjee met EC officials and registered a complaint into the incident and demanded a thorough probe.
State Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Thursday said that the village council elections will be held on a single day, with the deadline for filing nominations set for June 15. The votes will be counted on July 11.
The ruling Trinamool Congress on Tuesday said that the resignation of Laxmi Ratan Shukla as West Bengal minister of state for youth services and sports is unfortunate but it will not affect the party, while the Bharatiya Janata Party said that the former cricketer is welcome to join the saffron camp.
With a tagline "Dui hajaar uneesh, BJP finish, the West Bengal chief minister met several opposition party leaders as well as Bharatiya Janata Party critics and in-house rebels.
The invitation to opposition leaders is seen as Modi's move to reach out to them following the fiercely fought election in which the BJP registered a massive victory.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
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.
Over one crore voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 342 candidates on Saturday, when 45 assembly constituencies go to polls in the fifth phase, amid a raging second wave of COVID-19.
The real risk is that the core assumption -- that the votes for a candidate sponsored by an alliance will at least equal the sum total of its parts -- proves to be facile, observes T N Ninan.
Banerjee said she would stand by the Dalit community till the end as her caste is "humanity" and she does not believe in differentiation on the grounds of caste and religion.
The number of seats that the state parties will win will be much more than the BJP's, she further claimed.
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.
It is now clear that under the present Chief Election Commissioner, Lok Sabha polls are not being held in a totally free and fair manner, she said.
Chatterjee, who also held several portfolios in the Banerjee government as a minister, lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for their bold leadership and said there should be no place for negative politics, an apparent attack on TMC supremo.
Consensus emerged on the appointment of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the chairperson of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), while Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's name was proposed for the convener's post, pending approval of parties absent at the alliance meeting on Saturday, according to sources.
In an open confrontation with Tripathi, the firebrand Trinamool Congress supremo further alleged that the Governor was acting like a "Bharatiya Janata Party block president."
'The condition in Bengal is such that if you chant Jai Shri Ram, you would be put behind bars
The party brought back Yashwant Sinha as its national vice-president.
Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said political parties should not ignore their senior leaders.
A victory in Nandigram would not only establish him as one of the tallest BJP leaders in Bengal but would push him miles ahead of others in the chief ministerial race if the party is voted to power.
Sangma, the outgoing chief minister, said he has support of the BJP, the HSPDP and two Independent MLAs, while asserting the total tally may go up in the coming days as he is in touch with other parties as well.
Claiming that the Trinamool Congress is not perturbed over desertions by some leaders, she said politics is a solemn ideology and philosophy and one cannot change these everyday like clothes.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
"Tapas Paul was under tremendous pressure from central agencies and was a victim of the Centre's vendetta politics," she told reporters at Rabindra Sadan where Paul's mortal remains have been kept for people to pay homage.
"I am very excited about joining the TMC. I will work for the development of Bengal," he said.
The implementation of the NRC as nothing but a political vendetta of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, she told the assembly.
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!
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
The Janata Dal-United leader maintained that having taken the initiative to bring parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he desired nothing for himself but admitted having stressed at the meeting the need to expedite seat-sharing arrangements.
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.
The TMC team went there at the instruction of party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
'For the politics of patronage in West Bengal, it has always been important to have territorial control.'
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 also hit out at the government for posting retired bureaucrats, who she alleged were its 'yes men', as head of institutions.
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