In a break from tradition, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was on Thursday administered the oath as a member of the state assembly by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
The eight members -- distributed among the Congress, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party -- were suspended earlier in the day for the remainder of the Monsoon Session over their 'unruly behaviour' during the passage of farm Bills in the Upper House of Parliament.
High drama was witnessed at Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district on Sunday afternoon as West Bengal Leader of Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari was prevented by police from visiting violence-hit areas in Howrah.
Beset by troubles on multiple fronts within, the Congress faces the danger of imploding with party veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal on Wednesday sharply questioning the decision-making process, saying there are 'no monopolies', and demanded convening an urgent meeting of the Congress Working Committee for a 'dialogue'.
After the Trinamool's overwhelming majority in the West Bengal assembly elections last year, the SSC scam has given fresh ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist. Ishita Ayan Dutt reports.
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.
Banerjee, speaking at a rally at Sahaganj in Hooghly district, also said Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are spreading lies and hatred throughout the country.
'What did we get out of this agitation? Nothing... Now we feel it was all a mistake. We have no work, and our land has turned infertile. We are living in abject poverty'
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
Over 1.03 crore voters will decide the political fate of 306 candidates in this phase.
The overall average till 5 pm was 84.24 per cent.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in the state this weekend, while his colleagues Gajendra Shekhawat, Sanjeev Balyan, Prahlad Patel, Arjun Munda and Mansukh Mandaviya will be visiting in the next few days, sources in the party said on Thursday.
Shah also rejected West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's charge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to a temple of the Matua community -- which is in sizeable number in the state -- during his trip to Bangladesh violated the poll code.
Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the next month's Presidential election. She is focusing on another election that will take place in 2024.
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.
The chief minister skipped meals and remained awake the entire night on a makeshift dais along with some senior ministers and party members.
The road for the Opposition is full of 'ifs' and 'buts', reports Sunil Gatade.
The meeting also discussed possibilities of forming a non-BJP government including regional parties with the support of the Congress.
The central probe agency had on Friday carried out a fresh round of searches in connection with the case, they said.
He, however, asserted that all infiltrators will be thrown out of the country.
Sporadic post-poll violence continued on Tuesday in West Bengal claiming several lives as chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked officials to act decisively and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang up Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to express anguish over the law-and-order situation.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
Saradha kingpin Sudipta Sen had alleged in his purported letter to the Central Bureau of Investigation that Kunal Ghosh and TMC Rajya Sabha member Srinjay Bose had blackmailed him, and he was forced to pay hefty amounts to them.
Mitra was the editor of The Pioneer newspaper and was considered a respected voice on a variety of issues, ranging from politics to popular music, before poor health kept him out of the public eye for some time.
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
West Bengal, which is governed by the Trinamool Congress, became the second state after Congress-ruled Punjab, where such a resolution has been tabled and passed.
Mamata set 6 conditions for the state government to withdraw their four-day-long stir.
Mayank Mishra reports on how the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal has been extending patronage to the ruling party cadre.
Shah, who was accompanied by BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy, national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargya, was greeted with slogans of 'Amit Shah zindabad', 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' by party workers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
Banerjee said the two leaders discussed the current political scenario and strategies to oust the BJP in assembly and Lok Sabha elections at the 20-minute meeting at Gandhi's residence.
Non-BJP chief ministers are retaliating. If the Centre can use its agencies to threaten, intimidate and jail its rivals, so can they. The fightback will get more intense, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Questioning the eight-phase assembly elections in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she suspects that the dates were announced as per the suggestions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for better management of the BJP's poll campaign.
Mamata Banerjee was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the second consecutive time, heading a 42-member ministry.
Opposition leaders will also meet the Election Commission and raise the issue of tallying the paper trail of votes with the electronic voting machine figures as directed by the Supreme Court.
A bill to link electoral rolls with the Aadhaar ecosystem to weed out duplication was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
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.
With her various overtures and right noises at the right time, Mamata is once again trying to reshape her image from being a regional leader to one with national appeal and acceptability. After all, the charge of building a Federal Front may also bring to the fore Mamata's chances to become prime minister in 2019.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
"I feel ashamed to talk to such a prime minister who has blood on his hands," she said.
The module was also planning to carry out targeted killings in India and was in the advanced stage of procuring arms, including automatic rifles and pistols, ammunition and explosives to carry out the attacks, he said.
