A huge controversy erupted on Sunday amid the polling for 30 assembly seats in West Bengal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party releasing an audio clip where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is purportedly heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to rejoin the Trinamool Congress and help her win the seat.
Over 86 lakh voters will decide the political fate of 284 candidates in this phase.
First, Mamata's pampering of lawless elements masquerading as Trinamool Congress cadres. Second, her promotion of her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, as a possible successor and the adoption of Prashant Kishor as her political adviser. Neither has gone down well with either her followers or the public, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Tripura should be taken as a case study on how misuse of the AFSPA can be avoided even while transforming public opinion and controlling insurgency, says Sanjib Deb.
The two-member commission will be headed by former Calcutta high court Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Bhimrao Lokur is its other member.
The combined vote share of the Left Front was also reduced to nearly 24 per cent from 41 per cent in 2011.
Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting in all the 30 seats, while the Communist Party of India-Marxist is in the fray in 15 and its alliance partners of Sanjukta Morcha the Congress and ISF are competing in 13 and two seats respectively.
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
Last year, HPL posted losses of around Rs 960 crore (Rs 9.6 billion) on revenues of Rs 8,662 crore (Rs 86.62 billion).
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
Whatever the outcome from the assembly elections, what's evident is that West Bengal has entered an era of identity politics, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan was elected its Parliamentary party leader, paving the way for his successive stint as chief minister of Kerala.
The BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.
Announcing the name of candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she will be contesting from the Nandigram constituency as announced earlier.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
The Congress failed to win even a single seat in the polls.
The senior Congress leader opined that the situation in Assam can now be divided into two phases -- pre-CAA and post-CAA, and it was necessary to unite all anti-CAA forces in order to protect the ethos of the Assam Accord.
Five people were killed, including 4 in the firing by Central Industrial Security Force personnel, during the fourth phase of polling
'Mamata wanted the Congress in alliance with the BJP in Bengal against the Left Front government.' 'Pranab Mukherjee opposed it, stating it would amount to compromising on secularism.' 'In 2021, Mamata defeats the BJP and becomes a champion of secularism.'
Sources at the private hospital where Mitra was admitted to said he died due to heart and age-related ailments.
Union Minister M A Naqvi accusing the state government of "criminal negligence", which the TMC described it as "cheap politics".
The chief minister on Monday announced a double-pronged probe by a special investigation team under the Director General of Police and an inquiry commission under Justice (retd) Shyamal Sen.
The latest updates from the Malayalam film industry.
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
The Communist Party of India Marxist-led ruling Left Front seems confident about retaining power in the poll-bound state of Tripura. The north-eastern state, which will go to polls on Thursday, is the only state ruled by the Left Front now.
Since the formation of the CPI-M, following a split in the Communist Party of India in 1964, the party never drew a blank in the state in Lok Sabha elections.
Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata police commissioner, is known for his impeccable investigating and electronic surveillance skills.
Adhikari joined the BJP amid Shah's two-day visit to West Bengal ahead of the assembly elections in 2021.
With the Tripura assembly polls hardly a fortnight away, both the ruling Left Front and opposition Congress are holding a series of meetings to woo the voters.
The Left Front retained its bastion Tripura while the Naga People's Front in Nagaland and Congress in Meghalaya are set to return to power in the northeast states where counting of votes was taken up on Thursday.
The main contest is between the CPI-M and the BJP in the February 18 assembly polls for 60 seats.
While Left Front constituents maintain that they could not find adequate number of 'well-qualified' women candidates to be fielded in the election while the main opposition Congress maintains that there were few candidates with 'winnability factor' among party's women aspirants
Attacking the manifesto of the opposition Congress-Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura combine as a 'document of cheating', Chief Minister Sarkar on Monday said that the ruling Left Front was confident of forming the seventh government in the state in the February 14 assembly elections.
Branding Trinamool Congress rebels as 'traitors' like Mir Jafar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party for fielding the turncoats in the polls leaving saffron party old-timers shed tears.
Addressing an election rally at Sonamura in West Tripura in the presence of a huge gathering, Rahul said, "In all other states in the country there is a government and the people. But in the Left Front-ruled Tripura, the CPM organization stands between the government and the common people. So, it is high time you use your valuable vote to remove the organisation standing between you and the government."
Though the recent by-poll results proved that the Left Front stands to gain whenever there is a division of anti-Left votes, Congress and Trinamool Congress are not ready to enter into an alliance all over again, at least not in the immediate future.
The new BJP government in Tripura has renamed a lane leading to the official residences of the CM after party ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
'Even if the BJP does not come to power, the system has changed.'
'The Shaheen Bagh model of bullets and biryani won't work. The RSS looked at a template that would play to Bengali pride and harp on the state's development. Mamata's slogan to defeat the Left Front was 'Bengal awake and arise'. She promised to check the flight of capital from Bengal to far-flung states and usher in a renaissance. The RSS wants the BJP to pitch this line because it feels Mamata hasn't delivered on her promises.'
