Alleging that there had been politicisation and criminalisation of government officers in the state, the BJP leader, who was on a two-day visit, said the TMC government had stopped sending crime statistics to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) after 2018.
The accused was identified and caught after the footage from more than a thousand CCTV cameras in and around the JNU campus was analysed, police said, adding Dolai was arrested while he was entering his rented house.
Asked about the possibility of imposition of President's rule in West Bengal, he said there was no such discussion during his meetings.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Sandeshkhali leader Gangadhar Koyal on Friday moved the Calcutta high court, claiming that technology-aided videos mimicking his voice were being circulated in a bid to defame him, and prayed for security be provided to him by central agencies.
Raju Mahali and Geeta Mahali, who had hosted Amit Shah on April 25 during his visit to the area, on Wednesday joined the TMC in the presence of senior TMC leader and tourism minister Gautam Deb.
Even if the BJP gets 60, 70, or even 100 per cent of the votes in the seats where it scored more than 50 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, these will still add up to only 224 seats, argues Shekhar Gupta.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
Trinamool Congress supporters held demonstrations defying lockdown norms in various places, while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee offered to court arrest on Monday against the arrest of two West Bengal ministers in the Narada case by the CBI.
Noted economist and senior Trinamool Congress leader Amit Mitra is likely to step down as the West Bengal finance minister and even retire from active politics due to ill health, party sources said on Sunday.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday that at least 72 people have died due to Cyclone Amphan and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the affected districts and provide help to 'rebuild those areas from scratch'
Former Bongaon Municipality chairman Shankar Adhya was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday midnight in connection with an alleged ration scam case.
Scattered incidents of violence, including torching of buses and clashes, occurred and 1,600 people were arrested during the 12-hour bandh.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, ED officers faced resistance again during the arrest of TMC leader and former Bongaon Municipality chairman Shankar Adhya on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday unveiled a 'development-oriented' manifesto for the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal, promising an income scheme for all families, a student credit card and constitution of a task force to examine the inclusion of several communities under the OBC category.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
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 report put India's 'stored' nuclear warheads at 172 in January this year while the number for Pakistan was 170.
State Tourism Minister Bratya Basu said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the Tourism Department to go ahead with the setting up the board.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
The ED sealed the house and put up a notice summoning Sheikh to appear in person before its sleuths for questioning by January 29 in connection with its probe into the ration distribution scam, an officer said.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
The politicisation of ethnic sentiments in the state has coincided with the ascent of the BJP and increased activities of far right Hindu outfits, which organised rallies and other events on religious occasions such as Ram Navami a festival not very popular in West Bengal- unlike states in north India.
Politicians across the political spectrum graced Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani's wedding ceremonies at the Jio World Convention Centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex in north west Mumbai.
Protests were held in different parts of Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Birbhum, South 24 Parganas, Jalpaiguri districts, and Trinamool Congress supporters briefly blocked roads in some areas.
The Centre has asked him to join North Block on Tuesday but it cannot force an officer to join it without the permission of the state administration, Banerjee told a press conference.
"Not a single woman (from Sandeshkhali) has lodged any FIR. It was me who directed the police to lodge a suo motu case. Our block president has been arrested," she said.
Over 84 lakh voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 283 candidates on Thursday, when 35 assembly constituencies go to polls in the eighth and final phase, amid a raging second wave of Covid-19.
TMC on a roll, wins 13 out of 17 zilla parishads in WB
The West Bengal government has taken all precautionary measures to deal with Cyclone Yaas, likely to hit the state on May 26, and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will stay at a control room set up for the purpose to monitor the situation, officials said.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Squadron Leader Kanwal Deep Mehra's daredevilry during the 1971 War brought down a Pakistani F-86 Sabre. But he had to bail out of his plane, was badly injured. Then a fierce band of armed guerillas evacuated him to safety at great risk to their lives.
Other officers had to escape from the place without conducting the search to save their lives as the mob became "very violent" and even chased the officials so as to deter them from performing their official duty, it said.
The double mutant variant, also known as B.1.617, is mostly dominating Maharashtra (761), West Bengal (124), Delhi (107) and Gujarat (102).
At least two person was killed and 17 others injured when a bomb rigged to a cycle exploded at Alipurduar town in north Bengal on Wednesday.
Whether the age-old cry of kendrer banchana will be able to drown out pangs of Sandeshkhali, the EVM will tell.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are among the star campaigners of the party for the October 30 bypolls to four Assembly seats in the state, but interestingly, the names of actor-turned-MP Nusrat Jahan and former BJP leader Babul Supriyo, who recently joined the TMC camp do not feature in the list.
The aircraft crashed somewhere near Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri district around 12:30 pm, a spokesman said. This is the seventh IAF aircraft crash this year and the third MiG to crash in the Dooars region of North Bengal.
With normal life thrown out of gear by the region's worst weather disasters, the authorities scrambled in various parts of the state to restore normalcy.
The locals, who for the last few days have been protesting in the riverine Sandeshkhali area, came out in the streets as they distributed sweets and danced in joy as they celebrated the arrest of Shajahan, who has been absconding for the last 55 days.
