The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday issued summons to Trinamool Congress secretary general and senior West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee in connection with the I-core ponzi scam, sources in the agency said.
The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition at the Centre, hit right back, dismissing her allegation as 'baseless' and asserting she will be ousted from power 'democratically' after the assembly elections due next year.
Indicating a shift in stand, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday said his party is open to consider quitting Maharashtra's ruling alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) if the rebel MLAs camping in Assam return and discuss their grievances with CM Uddhav Thackeray, while coalition allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress vowed support to the beleaguered governing bloc and asserted its majority can only be determined in the assembly and not outside.
BJP chief Amit Shah said the ruling TMC has 'surpassed the violent legacy of the communist rule' in West Bengal.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
The demand was made by the Nationalist Congress Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Employees of public sector banks (PSBs) on Thursday went on two-day strike against the move to privatise public sector banks impacting normal banking operation across the country. Many branches across different parts of the country were shut as the United Forum of Bank Union (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions including All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) had given two day strike call. As a result, services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals might be affected due to the strike. But ATMs are expected to function as usual.
"I rise in deep anguish to place on record the way this august House is being subjected to sacrilege and that too propelled by a sense of competition among some sections of the House since the commencement of this monsoon session," the Rajya Sabha chairman said.
In Goa, where Assembly elections are a few months away, a delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders led by Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and including former Union Minister Babul Supriyo and the party's vice president Luizinho Faleiro met Governor P S Sridharan Pillai and requested him to immediately seek resignation from the chief minister and announce investigation by an independent agency.
The quizmaster-turned-parliamentarian was interrogated for about two hours on some financial transactions in bank accounts related to the TMC mouthpiece 'Jago Bangla'.
The Governor invited the 'attention' of Chief Minister Banerjee to the preamble of the Indian Constitution.
According to a schedule of her five-day visit provided by her Trinamool Congress, Banerjee is slated to meet Modi at 4 pm on Tuesday.
The prime minister telephoned Banerjee to take stock of the flood situation in West Bengal, and assured the chief minister of all central assistance to mitigate it, the bureaucrat said.
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.
Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as his convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said.
The chief minister, speaking at her first major political rally after the Lok Sabha polls, also said the party will launch a statewide protest on July 26, demanding return of black money "siphoned off" by the BJP.
The former BJP president is learnt to have instructed the party leaders to start working on quelling the unrest within party cadre, genuine or sponsored.
With the 72-hour deadline to the Centre to rollback diesel price hike, LPG subsidy cap and FDI in multi-brand retail expiring on Monday, the Trinamool Congress mounted fresh pressure with a Union minister belonging to it listing three options, including withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance.
'Whether the Hindu voter will vote for us or not, we can't say, can we?'
Ghosh suffered minor injuries when a group of women allegedly attacked her when she tried to take one BJP agent inside a polling booth.
The home ministry dispatched a terse reminder to the West Bengal government on Wednesday to submit a detailed report on the post-poll violence in the state, warning it that the matter will be taken 'seriously' in case it fails to do so, and asked it to take necessary measures to stop such incidents 'without any loss of time', officials said.
'Mamata is synonymous with Bengal, its culture, language, traditions.'
The Central Bureau has summoned Trinamool Congress's member of Parliament Abhishek Banerjee's brother-in-law in connection with a case of alleged illegal coalmining from the mines of the Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) in West Bengal's Asansol, involving the "kingpin" of the racket, Anup Manjhi, officials said on Friday.
The tumultuous Winter session of Parliament ended on Wednesday a day before schedule with proceedings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha marred by repeated disruptions by the opposition over which the government and the Congress traded charges and the presiding officers expressed their anguish at the conduct of some MPs.
While the Opposition is making a belated effort to form a joint front against the BJP, Mamata's ambiguous stand has created confusion, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Shah is scheduled to address a rally at Kolkata's Shaheed Minar Ground, where the state unit of the BJP will felicitate him for the passage of the CAA in Parliament, they said. Shah is also scheduled to inaugurate a new building of the NSG at Rajarhat and hold closed-door meetings with state BJP leadership along with Nadda.
Journalist Chandan Mitra, who passed into the ages on Wednesday night, will be missed for his courage to go against the grain, mourns Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The BJP deputed Shah as observer to Uttar Pradesh, where Yogi Adityanath powered the party to an impressive victory and where there are no hurdles in the way of the priest-politician's second stint in power.
While, the BJP accused the ruling TMC of orchestrating his killing, the charge was rubbished by the party.
'A hugely dangerous game which she thought she had mastered has now found a stronger opponent,' points out Payal Mohanka.
'Even if the BJP does not come to power, the system has changed.'
'This is the first time in Goa politics that a communal leadership is being foisted on Goa's people.'
The Oxford Union Debating Society, citing unforeseen "circumstances", on Wednesday sought to postpone a scheduled virtual address by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the last moment, drawing flak from the ruling Trinamool Congress, which sniffed "political pressure from the highest level" in the matter.
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.
The probe agency is likely to take him to Bhubaneswar for further questioning.
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
What Roy is planning is not known. Will he side with the BJP, which he calls 'non-communal'? Or will he float a party? Or revive the Nationalist TMC to further his political career?
The EC has deployed 580 companies of central forces to man over 98 per cent of the polling booths in these constituencies to ensure free and fair polling.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari filed his nomination on Friday from the Nandigram seat against his mentor-turned-adversary Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, and said he was '100 per cent' confident of his victory.
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