Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's 'rashtrapatni' remark snowballed into a major political row on Thursday with the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing the opposition party of insulting President Droupadi Murmu and demanding that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi should apologise to the nation.
The post-mortem repor said that Roy died due to hanging and no other injury mark was found on his body.
West Bengal minister Jakir Hossain was seriously injured after unidentified attackers hurled a crude bomb at him on Nimtita railway station in Murshidabad district on Wednesday night, police said.
In an interview with PTI, Chidambaram also stressed that no Congress MLA elected in the upcoming assembly polls can be poached by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa this time, saying 'our house is well-guarded' and though the 'thief' is still out there, the people 'will teach him a lesson'.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination for Nandigram assembly seat, where she will take on her former protege and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari and exuded confidence of winning it saying she has never returned empty-handed from the land of anti-farm land acquisition movement.
'This is a humanitarian visit. This is a visit to stand with the grieving families. We hope to reach Tinsukia in about two hours and spend some time with the families'
Indicating a shift in stand, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday said his party is open to consider quitting Maharashtra's ruling alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) if the rebel MLAs camping in Assam return and discuss their grievances with CM Uddhav Thackeray, while coalition allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress vowed support to the beleaguered governing bloc and asserted its majority can only be determined in the assembly and not outside.
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
They cited the lack of trust in the leadership of O Ibobi Singh and said that due to him, the Congress failed to form the government even when it was the single largest party in the state.
As state minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with other functionaries, openly air grievances against the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation, senior leaders are frantically looking for ways to pacify the rebels.
'Removing Biplab Deb and replacing him with Manik Saha is a fruitless exercise that the BJP national leadership has indulged in.' 'It is foolish to think that people will forget what these two have done to the state and its people in the last four years.'
Adhikari, leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, denied the charge, saying that he had recently gone to Mehta's residence in Delhi regarding a case related to "post-poll violence" in the state but "could not meet him in person".
Expressing concern over agitation by Trinamool Congress workers outside the Central Bureau of Investigation office in Kolkata and elsewhere in West Bengal after the arrest of two ministers and others in the Narada sting case, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday alleged that there is 'total lawlessness and anarchy' in the state and the police and administration are in 'silence' mode.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
With just over a month to go for assembly elections in Goa, political observers feel the Congress may upset the Bharatiya Janata Party's plans for retaining power in the coastal state, but appear less enthused about the Trinamool Congress, whose entry has added colour to the poll campaign.
Her campaign in the high-stakes constituency will begin at 11 am on Monday with an 8-kilometre roadshow from Khudiram More to Thakurchowk in Nandigram Block 2, followed by a public meeting in Jansabha Boyal II.
The BJP announced its list of 148 candidates for the last four phases of assembly election in West Bengal, rewarding around 20 turncoats and fielding party heavyweights Mukul Roy and Rahul Sinha.
Adhikari, the face of the Nandigram movement that catapulated Mamata Bannerjee to power in 2011, sent his resignation letter to the chief minister by fax, which he then forwarded to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar by e-mail.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
'Mamata is an emotional person, she follows her heart.' 'We loved that Didi, we still love her, but she is a changed person.' 'Why and how the change happened, who is responsible, I can't say.'
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukul Roy's return to the Trinamool Congress evoked mixed reactions in the saffron camp on Friday, with its state unit president Dilip Ghosh asserting that the move will have no impact on his organisation, and former MP Anupam Hazra claiming that 'lobby politics at play is adversely affecting the party'.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
The MP, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a bandage on head, said that Verma led a police contingent which attacked a "peaceful" protest by the BJP over the capture of its party office at Shyamnagar.
In Goa, where Assembly elections are a few months away, a delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders led by Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and including former Union Minister Babul Supriyo and the party's vice president Luizinho Faleiro met Governor P S Sridharan Pillai and requested him to immediately seek resignation from the chief minister and announce investigation by an independent agency.
A majority of its Trinamool Congress coucillors switched over to the BJP.
Torrential rains pounded the tiny Himalayan state of Sikkim and the tea growing region of North Bengal, causing landslides that cut off National Highway-10, the main road linking Gangtok with the rest of the country.
I'm still in a lot of pain, but I feel the pain of my people even more,Banerjee tweeted minutes before arriving at the venue.
The fulcrum of victory or defeat of parties attempting to form a government is held by smaller players and those willing to defect.
Four days after Trinamool Congress heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari resigned from the state cabinet, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee and election strategist Prashant Kishor on Tuesday met him, following which the party claimed that 'all the issues have been resolved'.
'Two years ago I told Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi that we have traitors in the Congress.'
'At a time when people don't like to even sacrifice their panchayat seat, Biplab Kumar Deb sacrificed the chair of chief minister with a smiling face.'
The Congress, which had held its sway in these two Muslim majority districts during the Left Front rule of 34 years and the following 10 years of the TMCs reign since 2011, has not been able to open its account in this election.
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.
Assembly elections to five crucial states will take place in a few months and the results will be decisive for the BJP, which is eyeing a third successive term at the Centre, in the forthcoming the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
The Supreme Court Monday rued the 'general practice' of speakers delaying decisions on pleas seeking disqualification of lawmakers and the subsequent arguments that courts should 'stay away,' while hoping that the West Bengal assembly speaker would decide on such a plea against Mukul Roy who defected to the Trinamool Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party after the state polls.
A senior TMC MLA said Banerjee told her party leaders during the closed-door meeting that they should shun "VIP culture".
One person was critically injured after being hit by a bullet fired accidentally from a police revolver.
The MP from East Burdwan, who defected to the BJP last December, has been put on 'probation' by the TMC, which he wants to rejoin.
'The projects that the government started to bring within Goa were totally anti-Goa and anti-people.' 'Can anyone describe a project as development when it is going to cause wanton destruction of people's houses, their surroundings and livelihoods and destruction of forests?'
The list, which is a mix of seasoned political players and greenhorns, has 17 women candidates, five more than the last elections, constituting roughly 41 per cent of the candidates.
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