Rattled by a series of demonstrations outside the state party headquarters in Kolkata, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party president Sukanta Majumdar Friday issued a stern warning saying that disciplinary actions will be taken against dissenting party members.
In New Delhi, Trinamool Congress MPs took out a protest march towards the PM's residence but were taken into police custody en route.
The trouble started when the SP member wanted to make a point on an ongoing heated discussion between Opposition parties and the Chairman in the Rajya Sabha over certain remarks made by BJP MP Ghanshyam Tiwari on Kharge a few days ago.
The Calcutta high court on Tuesday directed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) be handed over the case of attack on Enforcement Directorate officials at Sandeshkhali and the custody of suspended Trinamool Congress leader Shajahan Sheikh, as it slammed West Bengal Police for 'totally biased' conduct and said every attempt is being made to delay the probe to 'protect' the accused.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.
TMC Rajya Sabha MP and leader of the party in the Upper House Derek O'Brien and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Lok Sabha MP and leader of the party in the Lower House, have written to presiding officers of both Houses, urging then to wind up proceedings on Monday (March 23).
Bandyopadhyay had approached the high court in February seeking regular bail on health grounds.
Breaking her silence on the 'cash-for-query' allegation against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, party chief Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that plans were in the works to expel her from Parliament but any such action would help the lawmaker from Krishnanagar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The TMC also said that the Congress is not the "big boss" of the opposition.
At least three people were killed and several others injured in a blast near the venue of senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee's rally in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district, police said on Saturday.
TMC claimed that the new instructions were made with a "mala fide intention to benefit the candidates of Bharatiya Janata Party".
On Monday, the TMC leader had alleged that the returning officer of Nandigram did not order recounting of votes even after she demanded it as he feared for his life.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha allowed Banerjee to avail available remedies under the law but refused to interfere with the May 18 order of the Calcutta high court.
Seeking a third straight term, Modi is not just looking to stamp his electoral dominance on India but also chasing history with another consecutive victory equalling first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's record.
On Wednesday, Bengal's own daughter she firmly pitched herself as, was sworn in as the chief minister of the turbulent state for the third successive term amid raging fires of political violence and a rampaging pandemic.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday urged the Election Commission to declare Trinamool Congress as a 'terrorist party', upping the ante against the ruling party after political clashes in Birbhum violence left three people dead.
The MP, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a bandage on head, said that Verma led a police contingent which attacked a "peaceful" protest by the BJP over the capture of its party office at Shyamnagar.
CV Ananda Bose on Wednesday took oath as the new governor of West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress on Saturday removed Mukul Roy, a former confidante of Mamata Banerjee, from the key post of party general secretary.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday appealed to the people to ensure the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in 35 seats out of the 42 in West Bengal in the next Lok Sabha polls, saying that the Trinamool Congress government would not survive beyond 2025 if the target is achieved.
The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
One was nabbed from the West Bengal-Jharkhand boundary in Birbhum, one from Rampurhat and the third from Malda district on Tuesday night, a police officer said.
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.
Criticising West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan for questioning the sudden transfer of police chief R K Pachnanda, Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Sultan Ahmed on Friday said he should 'behave in consonance' with his gubernatorial responsibilities and not as a 'former Indian Police Service officer'.
There's enough time for Mamata Banerjee to change her mind, Alva said.
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, which will replace the ordinance promulgated by the Centre on May 19.
The MPs went right up to the entrance of South Block, but were stopped at the first check point.
Referring to the mimicry issue, President Droupadi Murmu also said she was dismayed at the manner in which Vice President Dhankhar was "humiliated" in Parliament complex.
The ordinance came a week after the Supreme Court handed over the control of services in Delhi, excluding police, public order and land, to the elected government. It seeks to set up a National Capital Civil Service Authority for transfer of and disciplinary proceedings against Group-A officers from the DANICS cadre.
CBI sources said Bose was interrogated for more than three hours.
A delegation of the NCSC had visited Sandeshkhali on Thursday after a large number of women claimed that TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh and his supporters captured swathes of land by force and also sexually harassed them.
Observing that judges have no business granting interviews on pending matters, the Supreme Court on Monday sought a report within four days from the registrar general of the Calcutta high court on whether Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay gave an interview to a news channel about the case related to the school job-for-bribe case in West Bengal.
This takes the total number of apprehended persons in this case to nine, a police officer said.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
Twenty-five Communist Party of India-Marxist members, including senior leaders Ashok Bhattacharya and Jibesh Sarkar were detained from the party office in Siliguri on Wednesday in connection with an attack on a procession by Trinamool Congress workers.
Twelve Trinamool Congress leaders including Mukul Roy and Madan Mitra have been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation for alleged criminal conspiracy and corruption in the Narada sting case wherein they were purportedly filmed while taking money.
A day after a Trinamool district president allegedly asked party men to attack the police with bombs and burn houses of Independent candidates, a TMC member of Parliament on Thursday asked party activists to "beat up Communist Party of India-Marxist workers with shoes".
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has accused Moitra of asking questions in the Lok Sabha to target the Adani Group at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani. He said it was Hiranandani who used her login to file questions from different places, mostly Dubai.
