'I urged the chief minister even before she took her oath requesting her to send a tough message to the police and the administration that any violent activity, any destruction of property, any arson, loot in your area, they will be held accountable.' 'Her silence on this speaks volumes.'
'Netaji Bose followed the concept of Bharatiya and he united all religions and communities of India as Bharatiya.' 'I follow that politics of Netaji and so does the BJP.'
BJP leaders in the state are either lying low or criticising the CAA move in hushed tones. Chandra Kumar Bose, vice-president of the BJP's state unit, is most vocal with his opposition to the Act in the current form. "The country is above petty party politics. How can I keep quiet when I see that something is happening which is wrong in its current form?" Other party leaders aren't as vocal as Bose but clandestinely have been questioning the merit of the CAA and its impact on the BJP's prospects in the state. In fact, at a time when the BJP started making deep inroads in the state, the fear of the CAA and the NRC appears to be ruining its prospects.
He said that out of anxiety of losing the general elections, the chief minister is insulting the Constitution.
Violence has always been a fact of life in Bengal's politics; it is just that the faces have changed, the contesting ideologies have changed, says Saisuresh Sivawamy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party decided to put on hold Shah's proposed rally and the Rath Yatra, saying it will wait for the final order from the high court, which will now hear an appeal by the saffron party on Friday morning.
While the first house has been rented for a year, according to neighbours, the other house has been rented for six months. Both houses are located at a distance of approximately 100 metres from each other in the Reyapara area.
The BJP urged the EC to take legal action against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her allegation that Union Home Minister Amit Shah may be influencing the poll watchdog and accused her of running a 'smear campaign' against him.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Union Home Minister Amit Shah over violent protests against the new citizenship law, saying his job is not to set the country on fire but to put it out. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' slogan, she said the BJP government has brought "satyanaash" (disaster) for everyone in the country.
As their parties are locked in a fierce battle for Bengal, Tathagata and Saugata Roy, siblings who belong to the BJP and the TMC respectively, answer the same questions put to them about the assembly election.
An officer on Friday said that the police registered suo motu first information reports also against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee. They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction and assault on government servant and breaching the disaster management act, he said.
Modi slammed opposition parties for seeking proof of the damage done by the Indian Air Force in Pakistan's Balakot.
Banerjee feels that as long as Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, she should be the undisputed leader of a united front of opposition parties, reports R Rajagopalan.
Referring to the violence in Malda, he refuted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's statement that it was a result of tussle between Border Security Force officials and locals.
'Mamata did not stand up for those who suffered owing to the chit fund scam, but only stood up for Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar because he has all the knowledge about the chit fund case.'
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
The meeting was convened by the Congress. Six major parties -- the DMK, the SP, the BSP, the TMC, the AAP and the Shiv Sena -- choose to stay away. The BJP took a swipe at the absence of major opposition parties at the meet and also said that their anti-CAA resolution must've made Pak happy.
Mamata said the saffron party could not build even a small Ram temple in the last five years.
This is possibly the last election in Bengal where two sides are squaring off against each other. Don't expect the BJP to be a bystander five years hence, says Devanik Saha.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
Didi is frightened by the rise of BJP in West Bengal," the PM said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that Mamamta is busy fighting with the poll panel instead of taking on political parties.
Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare A H Khan Chowdhury was allegedly attacked during a Congress rally at Kaliachak in West Bengal's Malda district on Tuesday.
The condition of the youth, who had slapped West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee at a rally on Sunday, was stated to be critical after he suffered multiple head injuries.
'Who are these people on the streets?' 'They are youth and students who were hoodwinked, bluffed by Modi for the last seven years, with a promise of 2 crore jobs every year.' 'And Mamata sings the same tune.' 'But the youth can see that as long as there is Mamata or Modi, there is no hope.'
Banerjee said the TMC would file a defamation case against the CBI and other central agencies for 'harassing and defaming' its leaders.
The incident comes two days after the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that its worker Trilochon Mahato, 20, who was found hanging from a tree at Balarampur in the district on May 30, was killed by the Trinamool Congress. However, the Trinamool Congress has denied the allegations and termed it as baseless.
The amended Act has put the entire Northeast region and West Bengal on the boil as people fear that it might exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.
He, however, asserted that all infiltrators will be thrown out of the country.
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
Left workers were attacked and several vehicles set ablaze allegedly by the Trinamool Congress at Bamunghata in South 24 Parganas district on Tuesday when they were going to attend a rally to protest Sunday's attack on Marxist leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader and former minister Kanti Ganguly said.
The three officers -- Bholanath Pandey (SP, Diamond Harbour), Praveen Tripathi (DIG, Presidency Range) and Rajeev Mishra (ADG, South Bengal) -- were responsible for the security of the BJP chief during his December 9-10 visit to the politically volatile state.
'Winning this election will take us a step closer to realising our dreams'
The war of words between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi hit a new low on Wednesday when the former called the BJP prime ministerial nominee a 'donkey'.
A Bharatiya Janata Party MP on Wednesday dubbed the opposition members protesting in Rajya Sabha as 'Omicrons,' alleging they were a threat to democracy, and asked them to get the 'Modi vaccine' for protection against the new coronavirus variant.
'Mamata has used minorities only as her vote bank.' 'In her entire election campaign Mamata did not utter a single sentence against the RSS.'
'Even if the government does not implement an all-India NRC before 2024, it will be part of the party's long-term project.'
As the BJP activists jostled to reach the Bowbazar crossing in the city, police resorted to firing tear gas shells and water cannons to disperse them.
Several exit polls on Monday forecast a clear majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab with some of them giving an edge to the saffron party in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
"The post-mortem report said it was a case of asphyxia due to ante-mortem hanging and suicidal in nature," the SP said.
