CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat spoke briefly to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt on the party's prospects in the coming assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal.
The Central Reserve Police Force and the police have seized a huge cache of arms from Maoist hideouts during a search operation in West Bengal's West Midnapore District.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday demanded that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance II government at the Centre take immediate steps to end the nexus between the Trinamool Congress and Maoists to ensure peaceful elections in West Bengal.
One person was killed and another 19 injured during a clash in Burdwan district between followers of the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist, police said.
Six Trinamool Congress ministers on Friday submitted their resignations to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who expressed sadness over the ally's decision in protest against allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail.
Unabated political violence in West Bengal on Thursday came into sharp focus ahead of assembly polls with Governor M K Narayanan asking top state government officials to take immediate steps for maintaining law and order and the Election Commission deciding to send a team of senior police officers to assess the situation.
Most private buses across West Bengal stayed off the roads for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, inconveniencing thousands of office-goers and commuters.
Abhijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee, was on Friday chosen by the Congress as its candidate for the by-election for Jangipur Lok Sabha seat vacated by his father.
Earlier, four men claiming to be Maoists turned up at the Urma railway station at around 2000 hrs and told the assistant station master and two porters to stop train services and leave immediately, Divisional Railway Manager A K Halder said in Purulia.
Rahul Gandhi, the All-India Congress Committee general-secretary and the man leading the revival of the party's youth wing, may have suffered a setback in the Bihar assembly elections. But his supporters are putting a distance between the Congress defeat and the 'Rahul effect'.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday alleged corruption in the erstwhile Left Front government and said that many files were missing for which FIRs should be lodged.
The Air Force is planning to deploy six mid-air refuelling tanker aircraft at Panagarh air base in West Bengal, a step that will boost the striking range of its fighter planes like Su-30 MKIs based along the China border.
Bowing to the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha's demand, the West Bengal government on Wednesday said it will seek from the Centre a tripartite meeting to resolve the Darjeeling crisis in a few days.
A 13-year-old girl committed suicide after being allegedly eve teased by some youths in West Bengal's Burdwan district, police said on Tuesday.
"There will be no discussion with the morcha on the statehood demand, but talks can be held on administrative arrangements and greater autonomy (for Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council)," Chief Secretary A K Deb told reporters at Writers' Buildings. Deb said in the absence of Morcha president Bimal Gurung, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would talk to any GJM representative.
A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
The country faced a major power crisis for the second consecutive day as three grids serving northern, eastern and northeastern regions failed on Tuesday afternoon, leading to 200 coal miners getting trapped in West Bengal and throwing normal life out of gear in 22 states.
In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party's poor show in the recent panchayat elections across the state. "Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose said.
