Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited was the top donor to the Bharatiya Janata Party at Rs 584 crore and the Bharat Rashtra Samiti at Rs 195 crore.
United Progressive Alliance on Wednesday projected a united picture on the eve of the Presidential poll with all constituents including Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and supporting parties attending a lunch hosted by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
The Trinamool Congress on Thursday refuted accusations of a police cover-up by the parents of the woman doctor who was allegedly raped and murdered, insisting that a newly surfaced video contradicts their claims by showing the family previously satisfied with the investigation.
The ruling Left Front and the opposition Trinamool Congress and the Congress on Friday united against the demand by the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha for a separate Gorkhaland on the lines of Telangana. "We don't want division of Bengal," Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, said in Delhi.
Reaching out to arch rival Communist Party of India - Marxist, the Trinamool Congress on Thursday invited outgoing West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the new government, to be headed by Mamata Banerjee.Deputy leader of the Trinamool Congress legislature party Partha Chatterjee met Bhattacharjee at his Palm Avenue residence in Kolkata and invited him for the ceremony.Chatterjee invited both Bhattacharjee and his wife Meera.
Presidential candidate P A Sangma on Tuesday met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to seek Trinamool Congress' support in the election for the top post. But the party remained non-committal, saying there was "no hurry" to take a decision.
Ahead of senior BJP leader Narendra D Modi's election rally in Karakat on May 25 to support National Democratic Alliance candidate Upendar Kushwaha, the BJP finally acted against Pawan Singh, who refused to withdraw from the fray.
Banerjee lost the Nandigram assembly elections to BJP candidate and her former lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes, the Election Commission said.
Upset over the 'manner' in which the government got the Women's Reservation Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha, an angry Trinamool Congress on Tuesday accused it of buckling under Left pressure and not trusting its own ally.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee, in the eye of a storm over his mimicry of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on the premises of the Parliament complex, attacked him again claiming that mimicry is a form of expression and a fundamental right.
National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma met President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday and recommended President's rule in West Bengal over the Sandeshkhali violence.
In another setback to the Left in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress on Sunday won the by-election to the prestigious Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat by a record margin of 2,30,099 votes over Communist Party of India-Marxist, emerging victorious from the constituency for the seventh consecutive time.
After demolishing the Left bastion in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee is all set to make its electoral debut in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh in the coming assembly polls.
Slamming Opposition parties for disrupting parliamentary proceedings, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said as details of the Parliament security breach incident emerge, it is getting "obvious" that the DNA of those who entered the Lok Sabha is inextricably linked to the "Congress-Communist axis".
A poster with death threats to West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and her nephew, party's general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, appeared in Uluberia in West Bengal's Howrah district on Friday, police said.
Police have leveled serious charges, including attempt to murder, assault with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman, and causing grievous hurt, against arrested Trinamool Congress strongman Tajemul Islam in the Chopra flogging case, a senior police officer said on Tuesday.
Causing serious embarrassment to the Trinamool Congress leadership, party MP Kabir Suman has written an autobiography and dedicated it to top Maoist leader Kishenji among others.
Like in the Presidential election, Trinamool Congress, which sought to put a spanner in the UPA choice of Pranab Mukherjee, plans to convey its preference for Gandhi at a meeting of the UPA constituents on the issue on Saturday.
Suspense mounted on Monday over the stand of two crucial United Progressive Alliance allies -- Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party -- over the Presidential poll for which the Election Commission is expected to announce a date shortly. At the heart of the strategy of Trinamool and SP is their clamour for a financial package from the Centre, but the Congress dismissed any possibility of a quid pro quo between any help to states and the Presidential poll.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Banerjee said the prime minister will now have to move around the country and also abroad with two crutches.
A woman on Thursday lodged a police complaint, alleging that she was abducted by three persons from outside her residence in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali where allegations of sexual abuse against Trinamool Congress leaders have been levelled.
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
Questions are being raised on the future of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as differences among its constituents come to the fore and several parties call for serious introspection by the Congress after a string of debilitating electoral losses.
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The 69-year-old leader had a fall inside her Kalighat home in south Kolkata after she returned after attending a programme, her family said.
Healthcare services remained affected at state-run hospitals in West Bengal as junior doctors continued their cease-work protest.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday took oath as member of the 18th Lok Sabha.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday declined to disclose who will be Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's successor and whether the United Progressive Alliance government will have new partners. "I have been churning it in my mind," said Dr Singh when asked whether he has thought of Mukherjee's successor after his nomination as UPA's candidate for the Presidential elections.
Polling for the fifth phase of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections will take place on May 20, 2024, with 49 seats going to the polls across 8 states.
His threat was heard in a video clip that has gone viral. However, the authenticity of the video could not independently verify.
The Trinamool Congress' rally in Maoist-affected Lalgarh had its echo in Parliament on Monday with members of the Left seeking to know the Centre's stand on the alleged hobnobbing of the United Progressive Alliance ally with the extremists, dubbing the meeting as an "anti-national activity".
The body of a Bharatiya Janata Party leader was found inside the party office at Usthi in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district, a police officer said on Saturday.
Bora said in his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that infighting within the grand old party helped BJP and compelled him to leave despite having been a member since student days in 1976.
A clash between the activists of Communist Party of India - Marxist and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal claimed one life and left six others injured, including two policemen, said a police official.The police further said that the deceased was a Trinamool Congress supporter, while the four injured victims were CPI-M supporters.The collision began today morning in three villages under Khanakul, Arambagh and Purshura police stations.
Threadbare discussion & political consensus is required over the Bill: Railway Minister.
Ghosh had appeared before the ED sleuths at the agency's office in the city during the day.
The Trinamool Congress will launch a Nandigram type of movement with its rally at Lalgarh on Monday in 'Jungle Mahal' prior to the assembly elections in West Bengal next year.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday pleaded innocence to the 'cash-for-query' allegation levelled against her and told a parliamentary committee that the charge is motivated by animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke off her personal relations with him, sources said.