Although the TMC, which controls nearly 80 per cent of the state's panchayats, has been at the receiving end of the public ire, the opposition BJP and the CPI-M have also faced protests in some areas over allegations of fraud related to the 'Amphan' aid delivery.
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
Mamata Banerjee said availability of land won't be a problem in Bengal as the state government has a land bank.
Strongly opposing the proposed nuclear power plant at Haripur in West Bengal's East Midnapore district, a Trinamool Congress Parliamentarian on Tuesday said it could not be built in the densely populated area and on a multi-crop land. "The nuclear power plant should be shifted elsewhere. It cannot be set up on a four or five crop-land threatening the livelihood of farmers. It also cannot come up in such a densely populated area," said TC MP Sisir Adhikary.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari filed his nomination on Friday from the Nandigram seat against his mentor-turned-adversary Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, and said he was '100 per cent' confident of his victory.
The severe cyclonic storm, which brought in its wake heavy rain coupled with gale wind till early Sunday, uprooted hundreds of trees and snapped cables in Kolkata and in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, bring life to a near-halt.
After five weeks of lockdown, migrant workers' patience ran out and so did the money, which forced them to leave Mumbai on bicycles.
Mamata said TMC will win all 42 LS seats from WB.
The Army was deployed in Kolkata and its neighbouring districts on Saturday, hours after the West Bengal government sought its help for immediate restoration of essential infrastructure and services in the state.
The accused, identified as Devkumar Mitti, allegedly made several calls to the landline number of the ace cricketer, a resident of suburban Bandra, in December last year, a police official said.
India's neglect of villages shows up in many other ways.
The Congress in West Bengal cautioned that the hold-up of a party leader from membership drive allegedly by Trinamool Congress activists in East Midnapore district of West Bengal could cast a shadow on relations between the two parties in the poll-bound state.
A policeman was on Tuesday gunned down by Maoists in Jharkhand's Sareikela-Kharsawan district as their 48-hour shutdown entered the second day.
As the West Bengal chief minister was busy containing the fallout of an internecine feud in her TMC following a rebellion by a redoubtable Suvendu Adhikari, the Centre shot off a fresh letter to her government to immediately relieve three IPS officers for central deputation.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday alleged that 'Bhatija (nephew) and company' had swindled central funds sent for Amphan relief and said that probe will be ordered into it and culprits will be booked after the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power in West Bengal.
The Criminal Investigation Department on Friday filed a charge-sheet at a Midnapore court against 58 accused, including jailed former West Bengal minister Sushanta Ghosh, in the Garbeta skeleton recovery case. Besides the former minister, his ex-personal secretary Debashis Pyne has also been named in the charge-sheet, which was filed within three months of Ghosh's arrest. The probe agency prayed to the CJM court to issue arrest warrants against all the 42.
The security forces arrested Sunil Mahto, a key accused in the Jnaneswari Express derailment case, from Midnapore West district, a senior police official said.
The inquiry report, submitted to the Union home ministry, suggested that not enough state police personnel were deployed within the five km radius of the prime minister's function.
In the first of a four-part series, Business Standard takes a look at how a mint in Salboni, West Bengal, is working overtime to print currency notes.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on Friday described the flood situation in the twin districts of Midnapore which has claimed 25 lives and affected over 22 lakh people -- as 'very bad'. Of the 22 lakh people affected, 16 lakh were from West Midnapore and the rest from its coastal twin. He said the Army, which had been called in to assist in relief and rescue operations, was working in the worst-affected areas and also air-dropping dry food.
According to the sources, he wrote to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee apprising her of his decision to resign from the party's primary membership.
The wheels turn for bicycles, as manufacturers go back to the basics. After motorised two-wheelers overtook cycle sales in the country, manufacturers are focusing on commuter segment again and reviving entry-level cycles.
When the BJP forms government in Bengal, the chief minister will be a son of the soil, he said at the rally amid loud cheers from his supporters.
The West Bengal government on Thursday lodged a fresh complaint with the Centre against Trinamool Congress, accusing it of having a 'nexus' with Maoists.In a letter to Home Minister P Chidambaram, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee cited the arrest of two persons from a Trinamool Congress-run camp in Midnapore who allegedly had Maoist links. "The chief minister sent a letter to the Union home minister on the arrest of 2 persons on Monday with Maoist links," said sources.
'Those who win indulge in shooting, looting, throwing bombs and burning houses.'
Banerjee urged the Centre to rethink about those who could not manage to appear for the crucial test.
Those who have 'sold their souls to outsiders from Gujarat' are insulting the Nandigram movement by playing the communal card, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday, and rejected the claim that she was an outsider in Nandigram.
Amit Shah, who missed campaigning in Bihar, made a two-day trip to Bengal starting November 5 to oversee BJPs preparedness for the state polls.
The 10th IRB of Nagaland has been requisitioned by the Centre to fight Maoists in Bengal's Midnapore and Purulia districts, but a section of jawans staged protest at the police training centre at Chumukedima, near Dimapur, on Saturday alleging they had inadequate logistic support and 'vintage' firearms were provided to them.
With his exit, the TMC will lose a crucial, politically influential vote catcher in the Jungalmahal region and areas in minority-dominated Murshidabad, and the BJP will get a face it badly needs, especially in rural Bengal, reports Aditi Phadnis.
Laxman Chandra Seth, believed by the vast population of the area to have been the villain of the historic anti-farmland acquisition movement in 2007, said the two built their political careers by misleading the innocent people of Nandigram. Now their lies are back to haunt them.
In the first of a four-part series, Business Standard takes a look at how a mint in Salboni, West Bengal, is working overtime to print currency notes.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and party MP Abhishek Banerjee was on Sunday slapped by a party worker during a rally at Chandipur in East Midnapore district.
The counting of votes for the politically senstive Nandigram assembly by-election started on Friday amidst tight security, official sources said.
"The police not only arrested us, but also beat up some of our members mercilessly. We have not come here to break the law. Why is the police stopping us from moving freely in an independent democratic country," Patkar sought to know.
The violence, which erupted in January 2007 over fear of land acquisition for a chemical hub in this hitherto little known corner of West Bengal, continued till November that year. Residents turned the area into a no-man's with roads dug up and the police unable to enter with the issue rocking the Parliament.
The UNICEF said an estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in the country.
An ambulance carrying a heart victim was held by the policemen waiting for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's convoy on an expressway to Kolkata on Wednesday, and was not allowed to go even when the patient's kin pleaded with folded hands.
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