West Bengal

Kolkata, May 25 (PTI) Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee Saturday offered to quit as chief minister of West Bengal following her party's drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, but the TMC rejected it.

Addressing her first press conference after the election results were declared, she accused the BJP of polarising people on religious lines to garner votes in West Bengal and wondered if some "sort of setting or foreign power" played a role in such a huge victory of the saffron party.

Kolkata, May 25 (PTI) In the wake of the BJP's stellar performance in the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday cracked the whip against internal strife and revamped the party organisation.

The Trinamool Congress also clipped the wings of her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, considered number two in the party.

All the districts under him where the BJP has won have been taken away and given to other leaders.

Kolkata, May 21; PTI/GANASHAKTI: Train services in the Eastern Railway's Sealdah division were disrupted for the second day Tuesday owing to a rail blockade by protesters at Kankinara, as clashes continued between the TMC and the BJP supporters in Bhatpara, where assembly bypoll was held Sunday.

Notwithstanding the prohibitory orders imposed in the area, unidentified men hurled a crude bomb outside Kankinara railway station, but no one was injured in the incident, a police officer said.

Kolkata, May 20 (PTI) A day after meeting Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee here on Monday, sources said.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president will meet Banerjee as part of his efforts to unite opposition parties against the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election results on May 23.

Kolkata, May 19 (PTI) Dubbing exit polls as "gossip", West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said she doesn't trust such surveys as the "game plan" is to use them for "manipulation" of EVMs.

The Bengal BJP was quick to hit back, asking Banerjee to "stop living in denial" as the days of her TMC government in West Bengal are numbered.

Most exit polls forecast a majority for the ruling BJP-led NDA in Lok Sabha elections with varying numbers, as the seven-phase democratic exercise ended Sunday.

Kolkata, May 16 (PTI) In a first in the country, campaigning for nine Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal going to polls in the last phase came to an end at 10 pm on Thursday, 20 hours before the scheduled time, as per orders of the Election Commission.

Polling will be held in nine constituencies of south Bengal on Sunday where an electorate of 1,49,63,064 will decide the fate of 111 candidates, the EC said.

Kolkata, May 15; GANASHAKTI:  Within  24 Hours of the ghastly act  of demolishing the Vidyasagar Statue   by the BJP –RSS--TMC  hoodlums in a show of BJP -TMC mockfight in the state, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury  and Left Front Chairman Biman Basu  led a Huge March of Red flag carriers  in Kolkata, in the same place, where  hours before Modi’s  and Amit Shah’s  followers in the name of roadshow  had been engaged in a mockfight  and demolished the statue of Pt Vidyasagar, the 19th Century iconic reformer and Rationalist. 

Kolkata, May 15 (PTI) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi Wednesday condemned the vandalising of a bust of 19th century Bengali icon Iswarchandra Vidyasagar at a college here, and said the culprits should be traced and punished.

Kolkata witnessed wide-spread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's road show on Tuesday. During the violence, a bust of Vidyasagar was vandalised at the college named after the social reformer.

Tripathi is also the chancellor of the Calcutta University to which the Vidyasagar College is affiliated.

Kolkata, Mar 15 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday conducted a protest march against the vandalism during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in the city on Tuesday.

Accompanied by leading intellectuals of the city, Banerjee walked for about 6 km from the Gandhi Bhavan in Beleghata to Shyambazar five-point crossing in north Kolkata area in the northern part of the city.

Kolkata, May 15 (PTI) BJP national president Amit Shah has rebutted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's charge that he is an "outsider" in West Bengal and said he has come to the state to campaign for his party.

Shah wondered if he is called an outsider for coming to West Bengal, "which is very much a part of India", then why not Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee be labelled as an "outsider" when she visits New Delhi?

The BJP leader was addressing a meet of intellectuals in the city on Tuesday.