Fissures appear to have emerged in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) as its two key allies, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, on Thursday clashed over seat sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.
The BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.
The much-hyped winds of change may not be blowing strongly enough for North Bengal, which seems reluctant to give up its red awning, finds Indrani Roy Mitra
Voting is underway in three Lok Sabha and 33 assembly seats across 10 states where by-elections are being held on Saturday.
The CAA, enacted by the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2019, aims at granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.
Noted writer and human rights activist Mahasweta Devi, who had actively campaigned for Trinamool Congress before the West Bengal assembly elections, on Monday described the government as 'fascist' and alleged that it was trying to throttle people's voices. "The people are denied of their legitimate right to protest and this is nothing but a fascist attitude. The government will have to withdraw the undemocratic diktat," Devi told a press conference.
"If municipal elections can take place in Hyderabad and Assam, why not here. The situation is worse than Kashmir and is similar to that of Iran and Iraq. Didi (Mamata Banerjee) has proved that West Bengal's law and order is not conducive to go for polls," he said while addressing a party meeting in Kolkata.
Modi later contended at a rally at Gangarampur in Dakshin Dinajpur, that Banerjee has been abusing him almost every other day as he raises questions on Trinamool Congress track record of "corruption".
Communist Party of India-Marxist and Trinamool Congress workers clashed on Sunday during the fiercely-contested West Bengal civic polls, which recorded a high voter turnout of around 75 per cent. The polls, seen as a semi-final before the 2011 Assembly elections, were held in 81 civic bodies and in the 141-ward Kolkata Municipal Corporation involving an electorate of 85 lakh.
The union minister went to the residence of Sanatan Singh at Balijhuri and had lunch there, sitting on the floor of the thatched house.
With the elections to municipalities and a civic body due in May-June and assembly elections next year in West Bengal, alliance partners Trinamool Congress and Congress announced on Tuesday that they would contest the polls jointly.
The state's debt burden increased to Rs 1,92,000 crore (Rs 1,920 billion), against Rs 1,48,110 crore (Rs 1,481.1 billion) in 2008-09 -- a rise of about 29 per cent -- state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta told the Assembly recently.
'Strategy is to divide and polarise electorate on communal lines.'
On Monday, Railway Board, the apex body in the ministry, issued a circular that the Prime Minister's Office would handle all projects worth Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) and above.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday expressed confidence in the unity of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in combating injustice nationwide, a day after Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's decision to go solo in the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.
The West Bengal chief secretary on Friday submitted a report to the Election Commission on the injuries sustained by Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee but the poll panel has sought more details by Saturday evening, sources said.
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
The None of the Above option, like previous polls, had few takers in the assembly elections to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The meeting was held for over an hour, he said.
Triumphant over the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in making it swallow threat to quit the United Progressive Alliance government, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked the party managers to strike a similar hard bargain with Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress for alliance in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections.
Earlier, the manifesto was scheduled to be released on March 11. However, the release of the manifesto was cancelled following an alleged attack on TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday described her party Trinamool Congress's "landslide victory" in the state assembly poll as a vindication of its fight to protect communal harmony.
The Calcutta high court on Tuesday restrained West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and three others from making any defamatory or incorrect statement against Governor C V Ananda Bose.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
The footballer, who contested elections twice as a Trinamool Congress candidate and lost both times, took to social media to announce his decision.
The former journalist unsuccessfully contested the recent West Bengal assembly elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.
A Bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav, while allowing the bail application of a petitioner in a case, said the number of patients infected with Omicron are increasing and there is a possibility of a third wave.
'There will be no change of seats for Delhi, Assam and Maharashtra.' 'Andhra, J&K, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, West Bengal and Telangana will lose seats while there will be an increase for MP, UP, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.' 'It is a big mistake if you make it a north-south issue.'
The map of West Bengal has turned green with intermittent patches of red as the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress swept to power bulldozing the CPIM-led Left Front with a success rate of over 81 per cent.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, pointed to the members of the committee that has been formed to investigate the incidents and said, "Can you imagine these people have been appointed to collect the data? Is this a BJP investigating committee my Lords?"
With Bihar and West Bengal assembly elections in sight, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress on Saturday demanded implementation of a 17-year-old Supreme Court order to provide salaries to Imams (clerics) of government-aided mosques.
The newly-formed Delhi Cabinet in its first meeting approved the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme in the national capital. The cabinet also decided to present 14 pending CAG reports in the first session of the assembly. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that the previous AAP government did not allow the health scheme in the city, preventing the people from availing its benefits.
The Left regime has helped conjure perceptions about industrialists' proximity to a particular party, but that may not be the reality.
The poll-panel called these seizures by its various field and technical enforcement teams a "historic milestone" achieved "for the first time in any assembly electoral process", meaning during simultaneously-held assembly polls.
"Congratulations to Mamata Didi for @AITCofficial's win in West Bengal. The Centre will continue to extend all possible support to the West Bengal Government to fulfil people's aspirations and also to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic," he tweeted.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that the decision of the Tata Group to withdraw from the Singur project was a colossal one.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
"We are for alliance (with Congress). But we are not for the Siliguri model alliance (in which Congress formed the board in the municipal corporation with CPI-M support). If there is alliance, we will welcome it. If not, we are prepared for election if it is held tomorrow," Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee told reporters after the party's core committee meeting.
The tussle between cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist and CPI- Marxist has taken an ugly turn in West Bengal, with as many as 120 CPI (M) workers being selectively identified, abducted and killed by Maoists in the past 11 months.
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