Ravik Bhattacharya

Besides Rajib Banerjee, Baishali Dalmiya (Trinamool MLA from Bally, Howrah) and Prabir Ghosal (Trinamool MLA from Uttarpara in Hooghly) have publicly expressed their ire against the party. While some have resigned from their posts, others have been suspended by the party.

“We will have an alliance of 10 parties, and we will contest 60 to 80 seats where we have a good chance of winning," Siddiqui tells The Indian Express on the eve of his entry into politics.

Speaking to The Indian Express from Delhi, Jagannath Sarkar stated that he tried to highlight the plight of Lakhs of unemployed people who had their last year (age wise) for applying for a government job in 2020.

Shah claimed that BJP would form the next government with 200 seats – there are 294 seats in the state assembly.

While the TMC dismissed them as good riddance, their number, the range of their political affiliation and their experience, BJP leaders said, were straws in the shifting wind.

Suvendu, Bardhaman Purba MP Sunil Kumar Mondal and nine other MLAs joined the BJP in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a public meeting in Midnapore.

Shah is scheduled to reach Kolkata late night with Adhikari, who has been given Z-category security by the Centre, before reaching Midnapore for the meeting.

Suvendu's followers claimed they were in touch with nearly 50 TMC MLAs and many leaders in the party organisation — not just from his strongholds of Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur, but also from Hooghly and Burdwan.

Under Rule 6 of the IPS Cadre Rules, 1954, in case of disagreement between Centre and state over an officer's deputation with the Government of India, the will of the Centre prevails.

The police used water cannons and lobbed tear gas shells to stop the BJP workers from moving past the barricades even as the protesters pelted stones. Some activists even set fire to the barricades.

Many believe that Suvendu Adhikari has the popularity and organisational muscle to influence the results in as many as 110 seats in the West Bengal Assembly, and could trigger a vertical split in the Trinamool cadre across the state, should he decide to ultimately walk across to the BJP.

Over the past several months, however, Suvendu Adhikari has distanced himself from the party, and has been conspicuously absent at both official party programmes and meetings of the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet.

Adhikari, son of the Trinamool MP from Kanthi, Sisir Adhikari, and himself a two-term Lok Sabha MP, has been in touch with BJP leaders for some time now, sources in the party in Delhi said.

In November 2019, the chief minister had targeted the AIMIM, without naming it, while addressing a workers’ meeting in Cooch Behar district.

During his two-day whirlwind state visit which ended on Friday, Amit Shah interacted with various communities, eminent personalities and party workers, and ate lunch with tribal and Matua families.

The Indian Express visited the families of five of the 12 political workers killed over the past few months — two each in the Hooghly and South 24-Parganas districts, and one in Paschim Medinipur. In each of these places, the BJP is on the ascendant and poses a powerful challenge to the Trinamool.

There are six notified Scheduled Tribes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

While the Union territory of Andaman and Nicobar has seen 2,985 Covid cases (676 of which are active) and 41 deaths so far, the Great Andamanese is the first among its vulnerable tribes to be hit by the coronavirus.

These field visits were a part of The Indian Express investigation into alleged irregularities in the manner in which several of these lists were prepared after Cyclone Amphan tore through Howrah, North 24 Parganas, East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas and Sundarbans on May 20.

An investigation by The Indian Express revealed that Kalipodo Das exists only on paper and these beneficiaries are all unrelated. And all the three own concrete houses that withstood the cyclone.

The one on left, of a Panchayat member. In rural Bengal, the politically connected — mainly TMC, some from Opposition — are jumping line for relief even if there’s little damage to show.

Days after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee promised punitive action for filing false claims, the TMC sent show-cause notices to nearly 200 party members and Panchayat functionaries in Nandigram and East Midnapore, Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas.

Lakhs of skilled migrants who returned to West Bengal during the lockdown and Unlock 1 are desperate to go back to the lives and livelihoods they had to leave behind virtually overnight.

Between March 23 and April 23, the West Bengal State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) received 136 complaints — more than four every day on average — about underage girls being forced into marriage.