The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday issued summonses to two Trinamool Congress leaders, including MP and popular Bengali actor Dev, for questioning in connection with its probes into money laundering cases, an official said.
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.
In yet another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, as senior leader of the state's ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the 'beginning of the saffron party's end' in the state.
The Lok Sabha's Ethics Committee will hold its first meeting on Thursday on the allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, with Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian and the complainant Nishikant Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai scheduled to record their statements.
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.
'Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and the Indian team are just sidekicks.'
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering case against Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra and businessman Darshan Hiranandani in connection with an alleged cash-for-queries scam case, official sources said Tuesday.
Breaking her silence on the 'cash-for-query' allegation against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, party chief Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that plans were in the works to expel her from Parliament but any such action would help the lawmaker from Krishnanagar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The NCW said it strongly condemns the defamatory remarks and requests strict action against Moitra.
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
"In his 2 speeches will he tell us: Why has PM not answered a single question in Parliament?... Why are Opposition MPs denied basic rights: voting, discussion?" O'Brien said.
The BJP projected the decision of TMC's Muslim MLA to join the party as a vindication of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas'
"Last time I stood, I was not allowed to speak. The ruling party paid a very heavy price for throttling the voice of one MP," she said, referring to her suspension in the last session.
The expelled Lok Sabha member from Krishnanagar in West Bengal, in her plea filed in October last year, sought permanent injunction against Dubey, Dehadrai, social media platforms X, search engine Google, YouTube and 15 media houses from making, publishing, circulating per se defamatory, ex facie false and malicious statements against her. She has also sought damages.
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.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party, which the former Union minister and two-time MP quit in 2021, and the Trinamool engage in a verbal war ahead of the general elections due in a couple of months' time, Babul Supriyo is very clear that if the BJP wins, as is widely expected, "democracy may not exist in India."
Opposition MPs in the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf (Amendment) Bill are scheduled to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday to protest its chairperson Jagdambika Pal's alleged 'unilateral' decisions and attempts to 'bulldoze' proceedings, indicating that they may disassociate themselves from the panel.
From the word go, Bihar growled its needs out when an MP from the state said aloud: "Give something for Bihar also, Madam." Every time the Budget mentioned cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh, "Kursi Bachao" was the call from Congress MPs.
The 49-year-old Trinamool Congress leader was called for questioning twice earlier by the central agency, but she did not depose citing official work and sought deferment of the notice.
Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament were disrupted on Monday as the treasury benches accused top Congress leaders of colluding with billionaire investor George Soros to destabilise the country, triggering protests from opposition members.
Amid the political blame game over Bengal's potato ban, which led to shortages in Jharkhand and Odisha, Uttar Pradesh farmers are the unlikely winners.
According to the agenda papers circulated by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, Ethics Committee chairperson Vinod Kumar Sonkar will lay on the table of the House the panel's first report.
The MLA later said he wanted to apologise to Alam as he should have controlled his anger.
Banerjee said the prime minister will now have to move around the country and also abroad with two crutches.
In a press conference later in the day Sangma said that any resolution that is decided upon should be acceptable to the people.
He indicated his conviction will remain firm even if that "uprising" ultimately puts the party he faithfully served for 13 years in the dock.
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.
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is conducting searches at multiple premises of the Hiranandani Group in Mumbai on charges of violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), according to sources.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
If Hindus are in minority in a particular state they should be able to establish and administer educational institution of their choice in keeping with the rights granted to the minority by the Constitution as per the Centre, she said.
Senior Trinamool Congress minister Udayan Guha has sparked controversy by claiming that fingers of those blaming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and demanding her resignation over the alleged rape and murder of a woman doctor would be broken.
Eighty-seven days after the body of a woman medic was found at state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, a Kolkata court on Monday framed charges against the prime accused, Sanjay Roy.
After the Congress' shock defeat in Haryana, the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties flexed their muscles on Wednesday, accusing the grand old party of ignoring them.
BJP's Badaun MP Sanghamitra Maurya has written to the Lok Sabha speaker, demanding disqualification of TMC MP Nusrat Jahan for allegedly giving a false affidavit over her marital status to the Parliament.
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 anti-corruption branch of the CBI asked the actor-turned-politician to appear before officials of the central agency on February 15 at its Nizam Palace office in Kolkata, the source said.
The bypolls were held in six constituencies - Naihati, Haroa, Medinipur, Taldangra, Sitai (SC), and Madarihat (ST) - following the resignation of MLAs who had vacated their assembly seats after securing victories in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Dehadrai, who was once close to Moitra, had levelled serious corruption allegations against the former MP which were strongly refuted by her, they said.
Healthcare services remained affected at state-run hospitals in West Bengal as junior doctors continued their cease-work protest.
He also pointed out the high sums earned by the coaching centres leading to the commercialisation of education.
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