Jitin Prasada was once considered as among Rahul Gandhi's 'young Turks' and was a minister in successive Manmohan Singh governments but defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2021, where he has again established himself as a prominent Brahmin face of Uttar Pradesh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday received wholehearted support from a group of women from the troubled Sandeshkhali area who met her after a Trinamool Congress rally in Kolkata, party sources said.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, an influential Congress leader from West Bengal's Murshidabad district and known to be close to President Pranab Mukherjee, is a three-time Lok Sabha MP.
'I am happy to join the BJP and will work as a party soldier'
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
The Congress's loss in the three states in the North-East, a region it had dominated for decades, shows there is a lot left to do to reclaim its political turf despite the Bharat Jodo Yatra which it had touted as a successful experiment in mass public outreach.
According to sources, Gandhi himself is taking stock of poll preparedness by talking to leaders and listening to their views for poll strategy.
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party would deliberate on its failures and do course correction after internal deliberations.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
BJP chief Amit Shah said the ruling TMC has 'surpassed the violent legacy of the communist rule' in West Bengal.
BJP chief J P Nadda on Thursday launched 'Lokkho Sonar Bangla' (target to build golden Bengal) manifesto crowdsourcing campaign to seek suggestions from more than two crore people in West Bengal ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
The Trinamool Congress MP said he is unable to bear various incidents that are happening in West Bengal.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
'The life of his political career is dependent on success in this constituency.'
An angry Nadda called the attack 'unprecedented' and alleged the state has slipped into 'complete lawlessness and goonda raj'. He also said the violence reflected the 'frustration' of the Mamata Banerjee government. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee insinuated the attack was staged.
Several protesters and police personnel were injured in clashes. The BJP alleged that a party worker identified as Ullen Ray was 'beaten to death' by the police during a baton charge.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
A quick look at the 66-year-old leader's political journey in the mid-1970s shows how injuries and physical assaults have shaped her political career over the years.
The party also announced the names of Milan Ghosh and Sujit Das for Samserganj and Jangipur seats respectively.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
'I told Rahul: "You have to become president. Taalne se nahin hoga (you can't avoid the responsibility any longer)".' 'Rahul said: "I will think about it".'
The prime minister took no names but made an apparent reference to reports about "rate card" for different government jobs in the Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal and prevalence of "cut money" in the state.
A formal invitation for the rally had been sent to Kishor, a senior TMC leader told PTI.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday unveiled its manifesto for the West Bengal elections, promising to build a 'Sonar Bangla' by providing employment, strengthening social security schemes and vowing to clear the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in the first cabinet meeting of the new government.
'He fears that the youth tide has gone against him and he will be swept away in the next assembly election in the state.'
The TMC, which is yet to fully recover from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll setback, when the BJP's tally soared from two to 18, is apprehensive that the AIMIM may act as "spoiler" in several assembly segments.
Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday justified the police firing on Youth Congress workers, killing 13 people on July 21, 1993 during the Left Front rule and asserted that he had never felt the need for a judicial inquiry into it.
Former West Bengal chief minister and a front-ranking Marxist leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will go down in the country's history as a pragmatic communist who kept aside his ideological convictions to woo capital for the industrialisation of his state.
Moitra's electoral triumph not only secures her seat in Parliament, but also serves as a defiant retort to attempts to sideline her from the political arena.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday described her party Trinamool Congress's "landslide victory" in the state assembly poll as a vindication of its fight to protect communal harmony.
Singh targeted the Congress using a 'snakes and ladders' analogy, saying the party will fall to zero from 99 after being bitten by a snake -- referring to the grand old party winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar condemned the violence at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and said that it was a "disturbing and fascist strike" by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
The district Congress has filed a complaint against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee accusing him of making "provocative" speech at a public meeting in Coochbehar.
'Two years ago I told Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi that we have traitors in the Congress.'
On Tuesday, police in Suri in West Bengal's Birbhum district used batons to disperse a rally where 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans were raised.
Banerjee has fulfilled two key electoral promises: Ridding Lalgarh of Naxals and bringing peace to Darjeeling
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