Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's talk of early Lok Sabha polls to his party cadres shocked Congress leaders engaged in backroom talks for the last two weeks to rope in his party to join the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre for giving it a stability to carry on till 2014.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav have taken A P J Abdul Kalam into confidence before naming him as one of the Presidential candidates on Wednesday evening.
Kejriwal alleged that demonetisation was the "biggest scam" in Independent India's history while Banerjee said Modi should not run the country through "dictatorship".
Soon after meeting, Raut hinted at a pre-poll alliance with the Congress in UP and Goa, stating that the parties are thinking of working together in both the states that are scheduled to go to assembly polls early next year.
The opposition on Tuesday termed as an 'election jumla' the women's reservation bill brought by the government with many leaders raising questions over the proposed legislation, contending it doesn't account for reservation for OBC communities and that it will be effective at the earliest by the 2029 Lok Sabha polls.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Hemant Soren as Jharkhand chief minister, to be held in Ranchi on December 29, Trinamool Congress sources said.
Former Railway Ministers were not on the same track as incumbent Sadananda Gowda, calling the Rail budget "pro-rich" and a " Modi gadget" which has nothing new to offer.
The TMC, in total, bagged 75.02 per cent of the votes cast, whereas the BJP got some 14.48 per cent votes, in the four assembly segments.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in Delhi on Tuesday night for consultations with United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday on the issue of the Presidential poll nominee of the UPA, amid intense speculation on Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's candidature for the post.
Among the notable absentees were Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's M K Stalin, Telugu Desam Party chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Delhi chief minister and Aam Admi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday trained her guns on the Congress, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will become more powerful as the grand old party is not serious about politics, and alleged that the country is suffering because that party does not take decisions.
Petrol price will go up Rs 3.73 a litre if the domestic prices are aligned with international rates.
Kick-starting her party's Lok Sabha campaign, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said her party would go it alone in the 2014 polls and renewed her call for a federal front of non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday reached out to Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati ahead of winter session of Parliament, but she remained evasive on her party's stand on plans by Trinamool Congress to bring a motion against Foreign Direct Investment.
The new faces in the state cabinet include former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Shovandeb Chattopadhaya, Kolkata Mayor Shovan Chatterjee, Abani Mohan Joarder, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Suvendu Adhikari, Rabindranath Ghosh, Churamani Mahato, James Kujur, Siddikullah Choudhury, Asima Patra, Ghulam Rabbani, Zakir Hossain, Sandhya Rani Tudu, singer Indranil Sen, Tapan Dasgupta and B Hansda.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said it will 'depend on the situation' who becomes the face of the Opposition to take on the BJP, but added she has no problem if someone other than her leads.
Reacting to the charge by Banerjee, the Congress held her responsible for the growth of RSS in the state.
A case has been registered in Tripura against Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, member of Parliament Dola Sen, West Bengal education minister Bratya Basu and other senior leaders of the party for allegedly obstructing police officers from performing their duties.
In an interview with CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, the West Bengal Chief Minister questioned the stability of the Centre saying Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati may bail out the government for now, but people won't bail them out in future.
The BJP chief also sought to know whether the Congress wanted to protect the "illegal Bangldeshis".
Jeetega Bharat has selected 125 Lok Sabha seats across the country where it will assist the Opposition alliance.
The remarks by the BJP leaders came as 17 opposition parties resolved to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly to defeat the saffron party and work with flexibility by setting aside their differences. They dubbed the planned alliance as "unholy and opportunistic".
Murmu, who had switched camp as she was reportedly unhappy with the ticket that was given to her by the ruling party, has expressed her desire to return to the TMC, a day after Banerjee's former aide, Sonali Guha, made a similar appeal.
"Commission maintains the position that they would not like to keep on being put in the dock for alleged proximity to any political entity," Deputy Election Commissioner in charge of West Bengal Sudeep Jain wrote to Banerjee.
All eyes are now on the low profile Mukul Roy, Trinamool Congress general secretary and Minister of State for Shipping.
All eyes are now on the low profile Mukul Roy, Trinamool Congress general secretary and Minister of State for Shipping.
Biju Janata Dal supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday termed as "baseless rumours" reports that his party would support the United Progressive Alliance government following the Trinamool Congress's pullout. He also made it clear that there was no question of the BJD abstaining if the UPA government seeks a trust vote in Parliament.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 'spreading lies and canards' against the Trinamool Congress government, and said voters, this time, would witness 'Didi versus BJP' fight in all 294 constituencies of the poll-bound state.
'The Congress don't have the zeal to fight the BJP. The party is so bogged down by infighting that it hardly has time or energy to build an opposition. The UPA does not exist'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs as 'gross injustice' and alleged that it was a ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party to stop these job losers from being deployed in poll duty.
He was accompanied by TMC MP and the chief minister's nephew, Abhishek Banerjee.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre was not disbursing funds under the PM-Kisan scheme to peasants in the state despite the Trinamool Congress administration having sent the verified names of farmers to it.
Banerjee scored a personal point with a massive victory in the bypoll with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
The TMC also said that the Congress is not the "big boss" of the opposition.
She claimed states were not consulted about it, a charge dismissed by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the examination.
Singh, who headed the UPA coalition government between 2004 and 2014, turned 88 on Saturday.
'Why don't you contest the election for PM's post. You are media, you can also contest'
K Chandrasekhar Rao deputed the party's working president and his son K T Rama Rao and other senior leaders to hold parleys with the leader of the opposition in Andhra Pradesh, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, on Wednesday.
BSP supremo Mayawati, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee have been at the centre of intense debate in political circles on which way they will go after May 16, the day of election results.
"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.
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