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.
Banerjee, who had already spurned requests by the chief minister to give up her fast, also refused medical assistance late on Sunday night when doctors from a state-run hospital came for a health check up of the opposition leader.
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.
'We are pleased to announce the candidature of @sagarikaghose, @SushmitaDevAITC, @MdNadimulHaque6 and Mamata Bala Thakur for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections,' the party said in a tweet.
Banerjee said the two leaders discussed the current political scenario and strategies to oust the BJP in assembly and Lok Sabha elections at the 20-minute meeting at Gandhi's residence.
Hours after a district court directed police to arrest Mamta Banerjee and some others by February 27 in connection with a 12 year-old criminal case, the firebrand Trinamool Congress supremo said she will not surrender "under any circumstances".
Apparently taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi over his 'Chai pe Charcha' initiative, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said her party does not believe in sitting at a tea shop just before the elections.
From putting up a decent performance in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 seats stitching an alliance with arch rival Samajwadi Party, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank in the current general elections, dealing a severe blow to its reputation of representing the voice of Dalits in the state.
What some of our leaders were up to on Monday, December 12.
'If unity is not going to be based on values and principles, how will we achieve it?'
Septuagenarian cinestar Biswajeet will make his political and electoral debut by contesting from South Delhi constituency on a Trinamool Congress ticket.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday, October 5, 2023.
According to TMC sources, the chief minister had called Dhankhar from a polling booth at Boila in Nandigram constituency, where she is pitted against her protege-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and alleged that supporters of her party were not being allowed to cast votes by saffron camp workers.
On the eve of the meeting hosted by it, the Congress clarified that it will oppose the ordinance on Delhi services in Parliament, a key condition put by the AAP to attend the talks.
The Trinamool Congress supremo said at an election meeting at Bhabanipur where she is contesting by-polls to be held on September 30, that she had been invited to Rome in the first week of October to attend a global peace meeting in which the Pope, other religious heads, dignitaries from various countries are slated to attend, where she would have been the only Indian and 'only Hindu lady'.
The Election Commission has barred Banerjee from campaigning for 24 hours from Monday 8 pm for her remarks against central forces and a statement which had alleged religious overtones.
Addressing a rally in Paschim Medinipur, the Trinamool Congress supremo claimed that BJP leaders "arrive here in choppers and planes from outside with bagful of cash to lure voters and loot votes" just ahead of elections.
Reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent comment -- that he was not ruling out a future alliance with former partner Trinamool Congress -- party Member of Parliament Derek O'Brien on Sunday said they would prefer to go it alone in the next Lok Sabha polls as the people of the state were firmly behind them.
She claimed that the Centre has not released funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) project for the state and other initiatives of its housing and road departments.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday asserted that ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from power at the Centre in 2024 will be her 'last fight'.
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
Claiming Banerjee has been made aware that Justice Kausik Chanda, who is hearing her plea, was 'an active member of the Bharatiya Janata Party' and since the adjudication of the election petition will have political ramifications, it was prayed that the matter be assigned to another judge by the Acting Chief Justice, who is the master of roster.
The newly-elected MLAs of the Trinamool Congress unanimously elected Banerjee as the legislative party leader at a meeting, its secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.
Babun Banerjee expressed displeasure over the party re-nominating Prasun Banerjee from Howrah Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal.
'I'm just about getting out of the cocoon now,' the former investment banker-turned-politician tells Kavita Roychowdhury.
Without ruling out the possibility of working with the Congress after polls, Akhilesh said he has good relations with the party and would be 'happy' if the next prime minister was from his home state.
Navigating a history of animosity and mistrust, negotiations for a potential Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance in West Bengal face significant challenges while addressing the shared adversary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, with the Bengal Congress unit appearing reluctant to engage in an electoral pact.
The recent controversy unfolded after West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee had in November advocated the need to give due respect to senior members and rejected the notion that elderly leaders should retire from active politics.
The CAA, enacted by the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2019, aims at granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.
Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections has begun across states and Union Territories, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told PTI.
A five-member delegation of TMC MPs, comprising Derek O'Brien, Satabdi Roy, Prasun Banerjee, Pratima Mondal and Md Nadimul Haque, also met the farmers there to support their protest against the new farm laws.
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.
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
The original suggestion was to call it 'Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance', but the word 'democratic' was replaced with 'developmental' after Kumar and Yechury raised some objections saying it sounded too similar to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), sources said.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
Cricketer Yusuf Pathan will contest from the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat, whereas Kirti Aazd will fight from the Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency.
"Since the elections started in West Bengal, central government hatched conspiracies to remove us (from power). I was hurt in my feet so that I don't contest the polls," she said.
He also hit out at the Congress saying governments in the past 70 years kept quiet on blackmoney because they were worried about losing power.
The BJP on Sunday authorised its president J P Nadda and Union minister Rajnath Singh to hold consultations with different political parties, including those in the opposition, on the president's election, in what is being seen as an outreach by the ruling party to arrive at a consensus on the choice for the top constitutional post.
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