Hasty, ill-conceived steps show how isolated Mamata Banerjee had been from the national political trend. A fascinating excerpt from Sugato Hazra's Losing The Plot: Political Isolation Of West Bengal.
In a new political alignment in poll-bound West Bengal, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday announced the inclusion of newly formed Indian Secular Front (ISF) of Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui in the Left Front-Congress alliance.
Mamata Banerjee's party won 132 seats and was all set to pocket two more to post a hat-trick of wins, decimating a frail challenge from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Left Front and the Congress, officials said.
The Congress and Left Front on Thursday finalised sharing of 193 seats of the total 294 in West Bengal assembly with the Left parties getting the lion's share of 101 seats.
A total of 69.96 per cent of 28.13 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the Tripura assembly elections till 3 pm on Thursday, amid sporadic incidents of violence, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gitte Kirankumar Dinakarrao said.
The crowd at the mosque was larger than usual, unsurprisingly because it happened to be the last "Jumma" (Friday) of the holy month of Ramzan.
Normal life in West Bengal was partially affected on Friday due to the 12-hour state-wide bandh called by the Left Front in protest against police action on its activists during their march towards state secretariat Nabanna.
She faced off against former disciple-turned-defector Suvendu Adhikari in a very different contest. It's not land acquisition, but an ego clash that has acquired, tragically, communal overtones, explains Kanika Datta.
The TMC had swept all the 16 assembly segments in Kolkata in the last election.
The recent bridge collapse in Morbi in which 135 people were killed may have an impact on BJP's electoral fortunes.
With the Congress presidential polls round the corner, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said decisions, including that of one-man, one-post, taken at the Chintan Shivir at Udaipur in Rajasthan earlier this year are expected to be followed.
In the 2017 assembly election, the voter turnout in the first phase covering the same 89 constituencies stood at 66.75 per cent.
"We are ready to work with any anti-BJP party. This has been our stance whenever the need arose for a big movement against divisive forces from Kashmir to Kanyakumari," CPI-M politburo member Biman Bose told reporters to a question on whether the CPI-M will be with the TMC to prevent the BJP from coming to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The BJP also announced a Rs 5 meal scheme for all, named after religious guru Anukul Chandra, and setting up of a Regional Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Agartala.
The BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal after winning 77 seats in the assembly polls last year, failed to win even a single civic body.
Banerjee, who lost the election in Nandigram, has to win this bypoll to retain the chief minister's post.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has scored high in terms of winning percentage in the Bihar assembly polls, while its partner Janata Dal-United has performed relatively poorly.
In winning a seventh term, the BJP also matched the Left Front's feat in West Bengal.
Following a debacle in the West Bengal assembly election, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has said he does not want to contest any future election in an alliance which has the Indian Secular Front (ISF) as a partner.
Party is above all. I am a loyal worker of the BJP. I hope I have done justice to the responsibilities that were given to me, said Biplab Deb.
There have been rumours of infighting within the BJP's state unit.
While the Congress was a unifying force, the Left front was divisive, he said adding "wherever we go, we unify everybody. We are a unifying force. Wherever we go we identify everybody and unite them and make them strong".
Uncertain political times in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura.
The ED had arrested Chatterjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress secretary-general, on July 23 in connection with its investigation into alleged irregularities in the recruitment drives by the School Service Commission.
Former West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar's subsequent elevation set a new benchmark for the actions of those who occupy Raj Bhavans, observes Aditi Phadnis.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
The organisation established its electoral presence post-Independence in states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, with West Bengal being its main stronghold, but eight decades down the line, the party, now limited to just some pockets of the country, has no MP or MLA in its kitty.
Nine MLAs, including Babul Supriyo, took oath as ministers in West Bengal on Wednesday, in a major reshuffle of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet.
Newly floated Indian Secular Front had initially demanded 15 seats from the Congress, but the party had agreed to give only five to it.
He also rejected queries on whether a "cleansing act" was going on in the universities.
'Didi' became the real 'Dada' as she got past the post, on a wheelchair and a foot in cast, a souvenir from the Nandigram battle against former protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari.
'Earlier, a lot of fear was in the minds of people that the BJP is anti-Christian and anti-minority, but over the years people have learnt to accept that the BJP is just another national party.'
It was a high-stakes three-cornered fight between the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.
Family members of Bhadu Sheikh, the TMC panchayat leader whose killing on Monday is suspected to have sparked off the attack with petrol bombs on some 10 houses in Bogtui village on the outskirts of Rampurhat town, claimed that Sheikh's sons were among those arrested.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
'Mamata has used minorities only as her vote bank.' 'In her entire election campaign Mamata did not utter a single sentence against the RSS.'
The ruling BJP won three assembly seats and the Congress bagged one in the high-stakes by-elections in Tripura on Sunday, officials said.
On Wednesday, Bengal's own daughter she firmly pitched herself as, was sworn in as the chief minister of the turbulent state for the third successive term amid raging fires of political violence and a rampaging pandemic.
Amid demands for a separate state carved out of Bengal by some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asserted that she is ready to shed her own blood, if need be, to thwart attempts to divide the state.
