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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 number of seats that the state parties will win will be much more than the BJP's, she further claimed.
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.
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.
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
Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said political parties should not ignore their senior leaders.
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.
The party brought back Yashwant Sinha as its national vice-president.
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.
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.
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.
The TMC team went there at the instruction of party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
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.
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!
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 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.
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.
'For the politics of patronage in West Bengal, it has always been important to have territorial control.'
She also hit out at the government for posting retired bureaucrats, who she alleged were its 'yes men', as head of institutions.
He also accused her of nepotism by choosing to play the limited role of "bua" (aunt) to her "bhatija" (nephew) instead of becoming "Didi" (elder sister) to the people.
"We got a lot of confidence from our success in Bihar, and we will continue that momentum," Owaisi told reporters after their meeting in Lucknow.
The results of bypolls to three Lok Sabha and 29 assembly seats spread across 13 states and a union territory have been a mixed bag for the BJP as its fortunes continue to nosedive in West Bengal against the might of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee while bad tidings have also come from states like Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
After his meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Tuesday said there can be no opposition front without the Congress, in a clear message to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her 'no United Progressive Alliance' taunt, even as another ally Nationalist Congress Party asserted it will make every effort to form a broad-based alliance that will also include the Congress.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday raised in the Lok Sabha the issue of TMC's Mahua Moitra allegedly calling him a 'Bihari Gunda' during a Parliamentary committee meeting.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
According to the TMC, the momentum built by the INDIA bloc over three successful meetings has dwindled in the last few months due to inactivity, with the Congress preoccupied with elections in three states.
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