Setting aside political rivalry, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday called up BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar -- who was diagnosed with Covid-19 a day ago -- to enquire about his health.
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.
During a fresh round of talks with North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier in the day, the NPP leaders stuck to their demand for change in the leadership of the BJP-led coalition government, they said.
Alleging that people's confidence has been shaken due to the economic mismanagement by the UPA government, a Trinamool Congress MP on Wednesday said it was worrisome that the rupee slid further after passage of the food security bill.
'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
With Karnataka starting release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu in compliance with the directives of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA), protests have erupted in southern parts of the State.
'Till today, we don't know how many people died of Covid in India.' 'How many migrated from cities to villages during the Covid pandemic?' 'How many corporates contributed to PM Cares?'
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday offered unconditional support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Ukraine issue and urged him to consider convening an all-party meeting for a national resolve to emerge from the crisis in sync with the country's long-standing stand for international peace and non-aggression.
The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) was in the grip of a crisis on Saturday with the Janata Dal-United saying the alliance was collapsing amid indications that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will switch back to the National Democratic Alliance, prompting the Congress to allege that the Bharatiya Janata Party is doing its best to cause a 'mini implosion' in the coalition.
'My role will be to take her message across the country.'
As vice president and ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankar is inheriting a troubled legacy. Although the government faces no real numerical challenges in the Upper House, political and legal challenges are there aplenty.
The newly-elected MLAs of the Trinamool Congress unanimously elected Banerjee as the legislative party leader at a meeting, its secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.
The Congress party continues to be racked by arbitrary decision-making and the absence of accountability.
'You don't win elections on the basis of borrowed players.' 'There is a great crisis of leadership for the BJP in Bengal'
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the Trojan horse of the Bharatiya Janata Party and should be kept out of all efforts to cobble up an opposition platform ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged on Wednesday.
TMC sources said their leaders Derek O' Brien and Sudip Bandyopadhyay are unlikely to attend the interaction.
TMC's campaign in the seat in south Kolkata is already underway with the Election Commission announcing the by-poll on Saturday, following a request from the state government to avoid a constitutional crisis.
She is the 21st chief minister of West Bengal and 8th person to hold the office.
'Switching loyalty from one party to another is completely unfair as it devalues my vote.'
Addressing a rally in Paschim Medinipur, the Trinamool Congress supremo claimed that BJP leaders "arrive here in choppers and planes from outside with bagful of cash to lure voters and loot votes" just ahead of elections.
Some of the Congress's new-found enthusiasm for hitting the streets will show its result in the Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka elections. That is when we will know if the Congress will go to the regional parties or the parties will come to the Congress.
Over 20 political parties, except the Biju Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front, took part in the massive rally.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged the Election Commission to re-consider its decision to stick to the original poll schedule, as she stressed that wrapping up the last three phases of polls on a single day or at the most in two days would check the spread of Covid-19 to some extent.
Contest on their own and get washed out, as happened in the 2016 assembly elections? Or contest in league with one of the Dravidian majors and get submerged under its election symbol? With elections looming, minor political parties in Tamil Nadu are caught in this dilemma, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The way opposition parties such as the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Jharkhand Mukti Morch have supported her, if she wins, she will be the biggest opposition face for 2024'
'Two years ago I told Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi that we have traitors in the Congress.'
High drama was witnessed on the first day of the budget session of the West Bengal assembly on Monday as Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was forced to table his inaugural address with Bharatiya Janata Party legislators staging a protest in the House over alleged violence in the recently concluded civic elections in the state.
The party believes that Mamata's poor handling of the pandemic and the devastation brought on by Cyclone Amphan will provide it the political fillip it needs.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee campaigning in tribal Paschim Medinipur district on Thursday for the coming state election asked "Marxist friends" not to vote for either the CPI-M or Congress, who are "cohorts of the communal BJP".
>The BJP's star campaigner could not help even half the number of candidates for whom he campaigned in his aggressive 'Didi-o-Didi' style in Bengal
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention on Wednesday in the alleged "whimsical" functioning of the railways in sending Shramik Special trains to West Bengal and urged the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre not to pursue politics when the state is battling a dual crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic and trail of destruction left behind by Cyclone Amphan.
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.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha who joined Trinamool Congress on Saturday narrated how West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had offered to go as a hostage in exchange for passengers of Air India's IC 814 that was hijacked by the militants over two decades ago.
The meeting was attended by the GJM, the GNLF, the Gorkhaland Rajya Nirman Morcha, the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (apolitical) and the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists.
'We are planning load shedding in such a way that the entire state will not suffer.'
Leaders of 13 Opposition parties Sunday urged the Centre to launch a free mass vaccination drive across the country in view of the unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases.
The combined Left parties drew a blank in the polls to the assembly which they had run with an overwhelming majority for 34 long years, with their vote share dwindling to a mere 5.47 per cent in 2021.
