Kolkata: In a breather for the Mamata Banerjee government, the division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday said that it is not mandatory to deploy central paramilitary forces for the upcoming Panchayat polls.
The West Bengal government had appealed the higher bench after a single bench upheld the State Election Commission's plea for three-phase polling and deployment of central forces.
The State government wanted two-phase polling and security by local police. The High Court has now asked the State government to deploy forces in consultation with the Election Commission.
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01:11 PM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: The Left parties on Thursday sought a court-monitored CBI probe into the West Bengal chit fund scam and accused the Trinamool Congress-led government of not intervening to check activities of companies with suspicious financial dealings in the state. Senior leaders of Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc met President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh separately and...
03:25 AM, May 10, 2013
Kolkata: Accusing the Left of failing to protect investors in ponzi schemes during its prolonged rule in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress on Thursday hit back after Left leaders met the Prime Minister and Finance Minister seeking a CBI probe into the chit fund scam. "Who are asking for a CBI probe today? It is those who were unable to pass an effective bill to rein in chit fund companies...
06:47 PM, May 09, 2013
Panihati: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday mocked her predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's comment that the former Left Front regime had kept chit funds at bay and promised to publish 'posters' against canards by the Marxist party. "Kept them at bay? But rubbed shoulders with them! Whose photo is this?" Banerjee asked dramatically at a Trinamool Congress rally in Panihati in North 24 Parganas, showing a photo purported to...
12:40 AM, May 05, 2013
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is getting ready to face the Opposition fire in the state Assembly. A special 2-day session has been called by Governor MK Narayanan from Monday to discuss the chit fund scam in the state. It has not just wiped away crores of investor money but also dragged the Trinamool Congress and Congress ministers into the mess. The scam is also getting bigger with...
10:44 AM, Apr 29, 2013
Kolkata: There was another suicide bid by a Saradha Group agent hit by the chit fund scam in West Bengal. Twenty-eight-year old Tapasi Singha tried to commit suicide by consuming sleeping pills. She had a liability of Rs 5,30,000. Tapasi and her husband Sri Nandan Singha were agents of Saradha realty. She has been admitted in Jangipur Sub Divisional Hospital. As lakhs of investors in West Bengal lose their savings...
12:47 PM, Apr 23, 2013
Kolkata: As lakhs of investors in West Bengal lose their savings in a chit fund scam following the collapse of the Saradha Group, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been shifting the blame on the Left. This even as heat builds on Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh who headed Saradha group's media unit. But he claims it was a while back when he was working as a journalist. Advocate Basabi Roy...
10:46 AM, Apr 23, 2013
Kolkata: With her government drawing flak after the Saradha Group downed shutters, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday blamed the erstwhile Left Front regime for the mushrooming of chit funds, alleging it had not even acted on presidential advice for a strong legislation to contain the menace. Breaking her silence on the issue days after the firm went bust, affecting lakhs of agents and distributors who had parked...
05:38 AM, Apr 23, 2013
Kolkata: Efforts were being made to downplay the 'attack' on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and finance minister Amit Mitra by projecting the Presidency incident, the Trinamool Congress claimed on Saturday and reiterated the demand for an impartial inquiry into the vandalism. Stating that the party had condemned both the April 9 'attack' on Banerjee and the finance minister and the vandalism at Presidency University a day after, TMC Secretary General...
06:51 PM, Apr 13, 2013
Kolkata: The CPI(M)-led Left Front on Friday demanded immediate steps against attacks on its party offices and workers in West Bengal following the heckling of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and manhandling of state finance minister Amit Mitra in Delhi on April 9, 2013. "Arson, loot, ransacking and physical assault of party leaders have been reported from many areas," the Front said in a letter to the state Home Secretary Basudeb...
02:45 AM, Apr 13, 2013
Kolkata: The Presidency University's faculty and students in Kolkata are on a strike on Thursday after members of the Trinamool Congress youth wing allegedly barged into the university premises on Wednesday and manhandled them. Armed with sticks, they ransacked the science lab where classes were being conducted. Some teachers were allegedly assaulted too. The attack came despite West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's appeal for non-violent protests. Female students at...
01:51 PM, Apr 11, 2013
Kolkata: The politics of violence has kept West Bengal on the edge as police had to resort to lathicharge with the workers of Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) clashing with each other in Siliguri on Wednesday. The Left Front has called for a 12-hour bandh in Darjeeling after former Left Front minister Ashok Bhattacharya and CPM state committee member Jibesh Sarkar were arrested on Wednesday. They...
07:56 AM, Apr 11, 2013
Kolkata: Condemning the heckling of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Finance Minister Amit Mitra by the SFI in Delhi, West Bengal's Left Front on Wednesday said that around 1,000 offices of left parties have been vandalised in retaliatory strikes in the state. "Everybody has the right to protest in a democracy but it is not right to heckle any person or someone who belongs to the council of ministers," Left...
01:27 AM, Apr 11, 2013
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said she will fly back to Kolkata on Wednesday itself and has cancelled all her meetings in Delhi. She said she was advised by doctors to get hospitalised but she did not want to be hospitalised. "I was given oxygen whole night on Tuesday, the doctor advised me to get hospitalised, but I don't like to get hospitalised," Mamata said. Mamata...
01:51 PM, Apr 10, 2013
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed regret over the protest faced by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from Left activists outside the Planning Commission's office in Delhi. Singh spoke to Mamata after her office called up the PMO to cancel the meeting scheduled with him on Tuesday evening, sources close to the chief minister said on Wednesday. The West Bengal Chief Minister had sought cancellation of the...
11:28 AM, Apr 10, 2013
New Delhi: 3:20 pm: Even as the TMC and the Left leaders appealed for calm, there were reports of violence. TMC and CPM supporters clashed in the Presidency University in Kolkata and a few students were reportedly injured in the clashed. TMC supporters reportedly ransacked labs at the Presidency University. 2:10 pm: Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien has called the attack on Mamata Banerjee and Amit Mitra a 'pre-planned' one....
10:15 AM, Apr 10, 2013
Kolkata: West Bengal's politics of violence reached the national capital on Tuesday as Students Federation of India activists manhandled State Finance Minster Amit Mitra outside the Planning Commission. While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was angered by the incident, Trinamool Congress workers went on a rampage in Kolkata and plan a statewide protest on Wednesday even as the CPM has condemned the violence of its student affiliate body. Mamata...
08:07 AM, Apr 10, 2013
Kolkata: Ahead of her two-day visit to Delhi, West Bengal's Left Front on Monday accused Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee of looking at opportunities to realign with the Congress - its former coalition partner. "Her visit is an attempt at bargaining with the centre, to reinforce the alliance that had broken, thinking that it would help her party in the next Lok Sabha elections," said Leader of...
05:29 AM, Apr 09, 2013
Matigara: Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said that with the coming of the Mamata Banerjee government, West Bengal has moved from one dictatorship to another. "It is the mistake of the people that the state has moved from one dictatorship ("tanashahi") by the Left Front to another dictatorship by the Trinamool Congress," Ramesh told Congress party workers here in Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district. Criticising the West...
03:20 AM, Apr 08, 2013
Hyderabad: Opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh have decided to go ahead with their statewide shutdown on April 9 despite the government providing some relief from the steep hike in electricity tariff announced last week. Bowing to pressure from the opposition and also a section of its own leaders, the Congress government exempted consumers using 200 units or less a month from the tariff hike. However, the latest relief from the...
12:24 PM, Apr 05, 2013
