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.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has set up four teams, each headed by joint directors Ramnish, Anurag, Vineet Vinayak and Sampat Meena, to probe the political violence which ensued after the victory of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on May 2 in a bitterly fought eight-phase assembly poll in West Bengal.
The counting of votes will take place on November 2.
In a letter, the EC said the state government must ensure that adequate steps are taken so that no post-poll violence happens.
Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said on Sunday that his party would "restore democracy" in the state if voted to power, warning Trinamool Congress cadres to mend their ways or they will have to either visit hospital or crematorium.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed to hear next week the EC's plea after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted a large number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines (VVPATs) are still being preserved and need to be released.
The bypoll on September 5 is also a litmus test for all three political outfits, with the BJP hoping to check its erosion in its vote share and retain the seat, the TMC aiming to wrest the tribal-dominated assembly segment and the CPI(M)-Congress alliance hoping to regain its traditional seat.
Amid demands for a separate state carved out of Bengal by some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asserted that she is ready to shed her own blood, if need be, to thwart attempts to divide the state.
Most of the leaders who attended the meeting agreed that Kishor joining the Congress would be beneficial for the party, they added.
Following a debacle in the West Bengal assembly election, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has said he does not want to contest any future election in an alliance which has the Indian Secular Front (ISF) as a partner.
One political resolution is expected to be passed at the meeting where Modi will deliver the valedictory address, which is expected to shape the party's views on a variety of issues.
Mamata's 'there is no United Progressive Alliance (UPA)' remark after a meeting in Mumbai with Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, an ally of Congress in Maharashtra, evoked a strong response from the party, currently being led by interim president Sonia Gandhi.
With two years to go before West Bengal elects its next government, the BJP's internal objective is to scale down the Trinamool Congress tally from 211 to 45 seats. This amounts to an annihilation of the TMC while enabling the BJP to win a record 250 seats in the 295-member legislature, reports Radhika Ramaseshan
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
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.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a two-day political tour of poll-bound West Bengal from Thursday during which he will launch the fifth and final phase of the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Poriborton Yatra' from the South 24 Parganas district and attend several other programmes.
The MGP, which had won three seats in the 2017 polls, is currently left with only one MLA after two of its legislators joined the ruling BJP.
AAP projects its affordable 'health model' as a success story. The BJP calls it a hoax.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
Shah, who held a closed door meeting to take stock of the party organisation, said he could 'sense massive public anger' against the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in the state and gave a call to 'uproot' it in the state polls.
Banerjee, who lost the election in Nandigram, has to win this bypoll to retain the chief minister's post.
As state minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with other functionaries, openly air grievances against the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation, senior leaders are frantically looking for ways to pacify the rebels.
"The polls were held absolutely peaceful and totally incident free," Deputy Election Commissioner Vinod Zutshi told media persons at the end of polling.
Banerjee scored a personal point with a massive victory in the bypoll with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said people of the country want change of power, but evaded a direct reply on whether his party would join an opposition alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
By-elections for four Lok Sabha and five assembly seats in four states went off peacefully on Sunday. Results of these by-polls, which will be announced on June 5, will be keenly watched in the run-up to the 2014 general elections.
The West Bengal Congress unit issued a denial and said the state president meant "TMC and BJP are just the opposite sides of the same coin as both are venomous and spread lies".
After West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose refused to concede to their request that their swearing-in be held in the assembly, two newly elected Trinamool Congress legislators held a protest on Wednesday on the assembly premises.
Sekhar Roy was summoned by the police in connection with a social media post he made over the alleged rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday came down heavily on the Centre for alleged "politically motivated" questions asked at the CAPF (central armed police force) recruitment examination and said it proved that BJP has politicised the central forces to serve its political interests.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
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.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), which contested the Goa Assembly elections for the first time this year, failed to make a mark in the coastal state.
In the run up to the West Bengal Assembly polls, traders are going gung ho about 'Brand Mamata'.
The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari issued notice to the Centre, West Bengal and Election Commission of India on the plea, which also sought to central and state governments to award compensation to the victims and their family members after ascertaining the nature of loss sustained by them in post-poll violence in the state.
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