Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections has begun across states and Union Territories, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told PTI.
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.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose has appointed the interim VC of another state-run university amid a row over his move to appoint such officials in varsities that have remained headless for months.
Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho on Sunday arrived in Kolkata on a two-day visit.
A Trinamool Congress leader was stabbed to death at a market in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district on Thursday morning, following which locals caught one of the assailants and lynched him on the spot, the police said.
Senior TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee sought to know if it was an attempt by the BJP to divert attention from 'the historic launch' of the ruling party's report card.
The bus careened and went down to a field behind the highway, leaving a few passengers slightly injured. Its occupants were brought back to Purulia town in West Bengal for medical treatment, a party leader said.
Locals and parents of other children immediately took to the streets following the incident, protesting against the "lack" of proper policing of the major road intersection in the southern part of the city.
The Calcutta high court Wednesday directed the West Bengal government to requisition central forces for assisting the state police in maintaining peace during Hanuman Jayanti celebrations.
Around 25 buses carrying Trinamool Congress volunteers set out from Kolkata on Saturday for the planned protest programme in Delhi on October 3 against the alleged withholding of funds by the Centre, party leaders said.
Senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Friday said he will participate in the party's protest programme in New Delhi on October 3, a day after he was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in connection with the school jobs scam in Kolkata on the same day.
The unrest in the Sandeshkhali region of West Bengal ballooned into a major political row on Thursday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the saffron camp of fomenting trouble in the area, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Commission for Women (NCW) accused her party Trinamool Congress and the state government of being complicit in crimes against women in the area.
Several BJP leaders including its Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya suffered injuries, sources in the saffron party claimed.
The TMC general secretary, considered number two in the party, shared the letter sent to him by the central agency on X, formerly Twitter.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha allowed Banerjee to avail available remedies under the law but refused to interfere with the May 18 order of the Calcutta high court.
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.
The bench agreed to hear the plea on Friday and told Singhvi to ask his junior counsel to go to the mentioning officer.
The Central government has also sent a communication to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, seeking a detailed report on law and order situation and the steps being taken by the state government in maintaining peace and tranquility after Thursday's attack on Nadda's convoy, government officials said in New Delhi.
The court directed the state police to transfer all records and CCTV footage relating to the matter to the central government within two weeks.
Soon after coming out of the ED office in Kolkata, Banerjee said the interrogation was an effort to prevent him from participating in the INDIA meet and a testimony to the vital role TMC is playing in forging the opposition unity.
CBI sleuths conducted raids at three houses of Ghatak in Asansol in Paschim Bardhaman district and one in Lake Gardens area of Kolkata.
The top court, however, did not stay at this stage the part of the high court order which had said that central probe agencies could quiz the Trinamool Congress general secretary in connection with these cases and fixed his plea for hearing in July.
The BJP will win the next Bengal assembly election, Thakur said.
The state government, however, has not sent any report as sought by the Union home ministry on "serious security lapses" during Nadda's two-day visit to West Bengal.
Within hours of assuming office, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday initiated a major reshuffle in the police hierarchy, transferring 29 top-level police officers, mostly those who were shifted by the election commission prior to the polls.
Abhishek Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP said that the Mamata Banerjee-led party, during the March-April Assembly polls, had driven "outsiders" away, and it would do so again in the upcoming polls.
The central agency asked Banerjee to appear at its Kolkata office on Friday morning, he said.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla may have a video conference with West Bengal's Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay and Director General of Police Virendra on Friday evening after they conveyed their inability to travel to the national capital, officials said.
Abhishek Banerjee sent a defamation notice to PM for alleged derogatory remarks made against him at a public rally.
The three officers -- Bholanath Pandey (SP, Diamond Harbour), Praveen Tripathi (DIG, Presidency Range) and Rajeev Mishra (ADG, South Bengal) -- were responsible for the security of the BJP chief during his December 9-10 visit to the politically volatile state.
The MHA had on Friday summoned Bandopadhyay and DGP Virendra asking them to present themselves on December 14 for an explanation on the law and order situation in the state, following governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's report on the attack on Nadda's convoy by alleged supporters of the ruling TMC.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
A case has been registered in Tripura against Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, member of Parliament Dola Sen, West Bengal education minister Bratya Basu and other senior leaders of the party for allegedly obstructing police officers from performing their duties.
Banerjee, nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the national general secretary of the TMC, and his wife Rujira Banerjee have been asked to depose before the investigation officer here next week, they said.
Tapas, the TMC upa-panchayat pradhan of the area, was absconding ever since his name surfaced in the first information report lodged by the family of Kaushik Purkait who was beaten to death on Monday night.
Mamata Banerjee had founded the party in 1998 after breaking away from the Congress, and has headed it ever since.
In a communication to the West Bengal chief secretary, the ministry of home affairs said as per the IPS cadre rules, the Centre prevails over the state government in case of any dispute.
Roopa Ganguly was on Sunday heckled and her convoy attacked allegedly by Trinamool Congress supporters near Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district.
In a first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission had Wednesday ordered campaigning in the nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, instead of 6 pm on Friday, in the wake of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata during Amit Shah's roadshow.
The former BJP president is learnt to have instructed the party leaders to start working on quelling the unrest within party cadre, genuine or sponsored.
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