West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said there is no alternative to the Trinamool Congress, and no other party can take its place in the state.
'If there is one thing our politicians, especially those with their ear to the ground, understand, it is the reality that their voters want three things from their children's schooling: English, English, English', notes Shekhar Gupta.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist raised quite a few eyebrows breaking ranks with the Left parties and pledging its support to United Progressive Alliance's Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
Pawan Ruia has finally done it, a beaming Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, then West Bengal chief minister, had said at the reopening of the 70-year-old Sahagunj factory owned by Dunlop in 2005. But with the Calcutta high court passing a winding-up order in 2013 and the Trinamool Congress-led state government passing a Bill to take over the company in 2016, the once-upon-a-time undisputed leader in the Indian tyre industry looks vastly undone. But that can hardly be a deterrent for Ruia, who has a penchant for making headlines one way or the other.
The 'NaMo wave' failed to influence voters in Tripura, which remained a Communist bastion with the Left Front retaining both the Lok Sabha seats with record margins and a vote share of 64.0 per cent.
"We are boycotting tomorrow's swearing-in ceremony. When our workers are being attacked throughout the state, how can we join the swearing-in ceremony?" state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.
Claiming that the Left Front has failed to cope with the situation in West Bengal, controversial Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah today used a naxalite platform, without party consent, to call for building a strong Left platform to 'resist attack' on farmers and the working class in the state.
Congress is the only other horse in the race for national power, never mind how distant. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know better than to take the Congress lightly, observes Shekhar Gupta.
It will be the year of preparation for the electoral test in Uttar Pradesh, due in 2022. But before that, the West Bengal Assembly election will set the mood for the rest of 2021.
In the first major test of popularity, the Trinamool Congress on Tuesday won the elections to three civic bodies and was leading in another while the Congress and Left Front major Communist Party of India-Marxist bagged one each in West Bengal.
Protest programmes against the hike will be held by Leftist organisations throughout the state from May 26 to May 30 and rallies will be organised on May 31, he said.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal, which catapulted to power because of the Singur and Nandigram agitations, on Friday decided to withdraw cases filed by previous Left Front regime against activists, including two ministers and a prominent Trinamool Congress MP.
Tharoor suffered head injuries while performing a ritual at a temple in Thiruvananthapuram.
Ironically, the BJP, which seeks to unseat the TMC from power, has taken a leaf out of Mamata Banerjee's strategy of soliciting tinsel town's support towards causes and fielding actors in elections.
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
Shifting positions on religiosity and Covid may confuse the Hindutva citizenry, but you can rely on Bengal to turn a non-arguable issue into a raging controversy, notes Kanika Datta.
Adhikari, the face of the Nandigram movement that catapulated Mamata Bannerjee to power in 2011, sent his resignation letter to the chief minister by fax, which he then forwarded to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar by e-mail.
The Left Front camp seems shellshocked as news of its heavyweights Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Gautam Deb, Ashim Dasgupta trailing in their respective constituencies poured in
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.
The LDF was also leading in 10 out of the 14 district panchayats and 108 block panchayats of the total of 152, according to the State Election Commission figures.
Priest-turned politician Yogi Adityanath, 44, who was on Sunday sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, now joins Trivendra Singh Rawat of Uttarakhand, M L Khattar of Haryana, Sarbananda Sonowal of Assam and 70-year-old Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik of Odisha in the league of singletons running state governments.
All Opposition political parties were united on Tuesday in their condemnation of the government's decision to detain Anna Hazare and his aides, hours before the Gandhian activist was scheduled to go on an indefinite fast against corruption in New Delhi. Leaders of the Left Front are scheduled to meet their counterparts in the Bharatiya Janata Party and other Opposition parties at 2 pm on Tuesday to chalk out their strategy in the wake of Hazare's detention.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who frequently alleged during the Left Front regime that her phone was being tapped, on Thursday said an inquiry has been ordered into the matter. No rules were followed while tapping the phones of political leaders, journalists and even common people during Left Front regime. "We have asked the chief secretary, the home secretary and the Kolkata police chief to probe at whose instance such phone tapping had been done," she said.
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 question that many observers of Bengal politics may be asking today is whether Singur will also mark the beginning of Banerjee's political downfall.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday claimed that West Bengal has been taken on a road of destruction under the 34-year Left Front rule and assured that the Congress-Trinamool alliance is determined to free the state from this "misrule".
Kicking off a virtual campaign for the assembly polls due in three months, Bhattacharjee alleged that 'foreign forces' along with the Congress, Trinamool Congress and Maoists had ganged up against his government.
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
The top leaders of the Communist Party of India-Marxist met in New Delhi on Monday to study its debacle in the assembly elections. Here's what they analysed.
'They have a voracious appetite.' 'But there are many places where they go and they lose.'
The state government as an interim measure would raise Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion) from market borrowings and Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) as loan from small savings, Mitra told reporters at the state secretariat.
Political parties bracing for the crucial April-May Assembly polls in West Bengal have put up a number of new faces, marking a departure after many years in the composition of candidate lists. The ruling Left Front, facing its toughest battle since 1977 when it came to power, leads the pack by injecting fresh blood in almost half of the total 294 constituencies, throwing out some prominent, but tainted names.
While Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan questioned 'the haste shown' in reopening the temples, state Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the decision was only in line with the Centre's guidelines in allowing places of worship to permit entry of devotees.
We are asking you, our dear readers, to help the Trinamool chief in her new and challenging job. What, according to you, are the five immediate steps that Banerjee needs to take after she takes over the mantle of Bengal's chief minister?
Eight ministers were on Sunday dropped from the list of contestants for the West Bengal assembly polls, with the Left Front announcing 149 new candidates, apparently to counter anti-incumbency. Assembly Speaker H A Halim will not contest the elections to the 294-member House, beginning April 18, on health grounds.As per the list, finalised at a meeting of the Left Front, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been re-nominated from Jadavpur seat.
The West Bengal chief minister did not have anything new to offer to Singur and its people, except that the site would be used for an industrial project.
Though several exit polls have painted a dismal picture about the electoral fate of the Left Front in West Bengal and Kerala -- two states ruled by the Communist Party of India - Marxist led combine -- the top brass of the party is putting up a brave front. Top Left Front leaders have claimed that the party will retain power in both states despite heavy odds. The United Democratic Front in Kerala, led by the Congress, is locked in a bitter battle with the Left parties.
'Hira' means, he said, "H for highway, I for Internet way, R for roadways and A for airways".
