The West Bengal government on Monday reinstated its seven senior officials who were removed from their posts early last month on the directive of Election Commission, to their previous postings.
Complying with the Election Commission's order, the West Bengal government on Wednesday removed seven officials from their existing posts and replaced them with different officials as desired by the poll panel.
Chowdhury is a five-time MP from West Bengal and has not lost the Lok Sabha election since 1999.
Six persons, including a woman, were killed and 18 were injured in violence and CRPF firing in the fourth phase of the West Bengal panchayat elections on Monday. Polling in four districts saw a voter turnout of 25 per cent.
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
The PFI, formed in 2006 in Kerala and headquartered in Delhi, called the raids a gimmick and an attempt to divert attention from the farmers' issue.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Watched by Union Minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Congress workers on Thursday went on a rampage vandalising Murshidabad district magistrate's office when the officer declined to accept their memorandum on the alleged custodial death of a party worker.
Aggrieved by the violence that marked the panchayat poll in West Bengal which claimed at least 12 lives and left 43 injured, several candidates who were in the fray had met the SEC officials and demanded the repolling.
Upholding principles was a luxury when there were charismatic leaders capable of winning elections without stooping low to indulge in identity politics, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Police personnel in adequate strength were deployed across the state to maintain law and order, officials said.
Some members of the Trinamool Congress allegedly chopped off the ear of a member of Panchayat at Debipur in Murshidabad district on Thursday. TMC workers allegedly attacked the victim, Hazrat Omar, as he failed to turn up for work on the first day of the nation-wide bandh called by central trade unions.
Union minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was on Friday booked by police, a day after Congress workers vandalised the Murshidabad district magistrate's office in his presence, and remained defiant saying he stood by what he did and was ready to go to jail.
Never have I been so thankful for my decision to quit my life in Mumbai and shift to Santiniketan as I have been in these times of the coronavirus.
An engineering student of the Jadavpur University has filed a police complaint, alleging he had to leave the university because of severe ragging at the hands of senior students in the hostel where he was staying.
A day after Congress workers vandalised the Murshidabad district magistrate's office in his presence, Union minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Friday remained defiant saying he stood by what he did and was ready to go to jail, even as police filed FIRs against about 1200 people.
Minister of State for Home R P N Singh on Friday defended fellow Congressman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, saying the minister of state for railways has said that the protests in Murshidabad were peaceful.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, an influential Congress leader from West Bengal's Murshidabad district and known to be close to President Pranab Mukherjee, is a three-time Lok Sabha MP.
In yet another case of atrocity against school children, a class V student of Don Bosco School at Sagardighi in West Bengal's Murshidabad district was allegedly sexually assaulted by the hostel superintendent, the police said on Sunday.
Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the journey of PM-CARES from its founding to finally admitting it is not a government fund.
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 Border Security Force has ordered court martial proceedings against eight of its personnel after a video of their stripping, kicking and beating a Bangladeshi national along the India-Bangla border in West Bengal's Murshidabad district surfaced recently. The personnel, according to BSF chief Utthan K Bansal, were found prima facie "guilty" after a court of inquiry was conducted into the incident, which took place early in January.
A man was beheaded on Monday inside the compartment of a local train when it was entering Bazarshaw station on Eastern Railway.
Seven people were killed as thunderstorm hit West Bengal, officials said in Kolkata on Saturday.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
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 brewing discontentment in the party may adversely impact the TMC's prospects in the next assembly polls due in April-May next year.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
Hazra, who hails from Murshidabad in West Bengal, has served for about 27 years in the border guarding force. He is survived by a 21-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son.
The TMC expects to emerge victorious by way of a majority of minority votes and a minority of majority votes, notes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
Mukherjee had lost the Lok Sabha elections twice earlier and it was third time lucky for him, much to the delight of the Congress leader's supporters.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress government in the state saying that the women in Bengal were the worst sufferers despite having a lady chief minister.
Terming the incident "unfortunate", the Bangladesh home minister said the director general of both the forces should ideally sit together and solve the issue.
Three more infants have died at the state-run Malda Medical College and Hospital taking the toll to 18 in the last four days, hospital sources said on Saturday.
Two presiding officers were removed following allegation of influencing voters and an election agent of Communist Party of India-Marxist detained for interrogation after postal ballots were recovered from him, the sources said in Kolkata.
Maneka Gandhi will contest from Sultanpur and Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit.
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".
Instead of taking loans from banks, they believe in forming groups - some acting as treasurers, others as accountants, credit officers or recovery agents - with Bandhan, one of the most active microfinance institutions (MFI) in the region.
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