Kolkata: The State Election Commission on Tuesday agreed to the formula proposed by the West Bengal government for district wise holding of the panchayat elections in three phases and said the polls would be notified this week. "As of now, yes. We will issue the notification by this week," State Election Commissioner Mira Pandey said when asked whether the SEC has agreed to the 9-4-4 district distribution formula by the state government.
Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee told a meeting at Singur in Hooghly district that the poll schedule would be known in the next few days. "The panchayat poll will be held in three phases and we will be able to get sufficient police force from other states as polling will be staggered," he said. "We hope that the people will be with the Ma Mati Manush government and bless it," he said.
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02:01 AM, May 22, 2013
Kolkata: There were differences at a meeting on Thursday between the State Election Commission (SEC) and the West Bengal government over fixing dates for the three-tier panchayat elections after the Calcutta High Court's direction that the two mutually agree on it. "We suggested certain dates and they (state government) also placed some dates for the panchayat election to be held in three phases as per the High Court order," State...
06:10 PM, May 16, 2013
Kolkata: Delivering a double blow to West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court on Monday ordered CBI probe into a Trinamool Congress worker's death allegedly in police custody and refused to suspend its earlier verdict upholding the primacy of the State Election Commission. A division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice JM Bagchi took the twin decisions hearing separate cases within a gap of hours in...
04:42 AM, May 14, 2013
Onion prices have climbed sharply following a drought, a worry for the government as it heads into state elections that have been known to turn on the cost of the vegetable. Prices have more than doubled in the last three months and no respite is in sight. Supplies remain tight as low rainfall has cut sowing and curtailed growth of individual bulbs. ...
04:00 PM, Feb 08, 2013
New Delhi: Delhi's state Election Commission on Thursday decided to allow eunuchs to fight the next month's civic polls as per their status enrolled in the voters' list. The Commission came out with an order, stating that eunuchs, whose sex in the voters' list have been mentioned as "other" will be able to contest from the wards under general category. State Election Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, rejecting demand of a number...
07:14 PM, Mar 15, 2012
New Delhi: Petrol and possibly diesel prices are likely to be hiked by Rs 2-4 per litre once Assembly Elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, are completed this week. State-owned oil companies are losing about Rs 4 per litre on petrol, industry officials said. Oil firms had last revised petrol prices on December 1 after which rates have not been changed because of Assembly Elections. The industry, they said,...
08:52 PM, Feb 27, 2012
Mumbai: Voting began on a peaceful note at 7.30 am though crowds were not evident at many booths in view of the severe cold wave conditions sweeping most parts of the state. Polling will continue till 5.30 pm in all areas, barring Gadchiroli, where it will close at 3.30 pm. Nearly 3.89 crore voters shall elect their new representatives for 1,624 Zilla Parishad seats and 3,218 Panchayat Samiti seats, for...
11:38 AM, Feb 07, 2012
Ahmedabad: Gujarat Congress on Monday launched the 'Sardar Sandesh Yatra' from Bardoli town of south Gujarat as a part of the campaign for the state elections, scheduled in December 2012. The 'Sardar Sandesh Yatra' was flagged in the presence of the state Congress president Arjun Modhwadia, Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil and former Union Minister and 2012 Campaign Committee chief Shankarsinh Vaghela. The Congress had last week announced to take...
08:35 AM, Jan 03, 2012
New Delhi: BJP on Monday night declared its second list comprising 81 candidates for Uttar Pradesh, along with candidates for 48 seats of Uttarakhand and 20 seats of Punjab for the forthcoming Assembly elections in these states. After declaring candidates for 143 seats of UP earlier, the BJP Central Election Committee declared candidates for 81 seats of the politically crucial state. Of these six are former ministers, six are former...
07:57 AM, Jan 03, 2012
New Delhi: Oil companies will meet on Monday to revise rates of petrol because of the weakening rupee. But any hike will need a political clearance given that Assembly Elections in five states are around the corner. A hike of about Rs 2.10-2.13 per litre in petrol price is likely. State-owned oil companies, as per practice, revise rates of petrol on 1st and 16th of every month based on the...
07:21 AM, Jan 02, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission is likely to finalise on Saturday the schedule for assembly polls in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, amid indications that the poll dates could be announced "very soon". The poll schedule would be finalised after the meeting between Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi and Election Commissioners V S Sampath and H S Brahma on Saturday. The schedule for...
10:32 PM, Dec 23, 2011
New Delhi: The UPA government played the Muslim quota card ahead of key state elections. The government on Thursday said they are considering quota for Backward Muslims in jobs and education and will come out with the quota soon. The government will soon take a decision on fixing a quota for Muslims within the 27 per cent quota fixed for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Law Minister Salman Khurshid said. "Of...
12:52 PM, Dec 01, 2011
New Delhi: Blaming DMK for the drubbing in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Assembly elections, Congress has said there is a need to take a "relook" at its strategy in the southern state as the party must not lose its vote bank due to "mistakes of its coalition partners". The remarks made in the editorial and an article of the latest issue of party mouthpiece 'Congress Sandesh' have come at a...
03:07 PM, Jun 10, 2011
Kolkata: After being sworn in as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has completed seven days in office on Friday, a week in which she has literally taken the city of Kolkata by storm. In her first week as the Chief Minister, Mamata walked, scolded, and even gave a lesson or two on how to man traffic. Refusing VIP security, Mamata Banerjee took her role of an aam...
08:54 AM, May 27, 2011
Singur: Mamata Banerjee's first cabinet decision after becoming the West Bengal Chief Minister was to return 400 acres to the unwilling farmers of Singur, also opening a window for the Tatas to set up a plant in the remaining 600 acres. The promise that catapulted Mamata Banerjee into power is soon going to become a reality for thousand of farmers in Singur. But the process may not be that simple....
07:31 AM, May 24, 2011
Thiruvananthapuram: The UDF ministry in Kerala headed by Oommen Chandy was on Monday expanded with the induction of 13 more ministers - nine from Congress, three from IUML and one from Kerala Congress (M). With Monday's exercise, the ministry strength rose to 20. Chandy and six other ministers, each representing the UDF constituents, assumed office on May 18, after the coalition unseated the CPI(M)-led LDF ministry in the assembly polls....
04:58 PM, May 23, 2011
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday allocated portfolios to her newly sworn-in council of ministers, keeping to herself nine departments, including Home, Land and Land Reforms. Her other departments are Information and Cultural Affairs, Health and Family Welfare, Agriculture, Hill Affairs, Minority Affairs and Madrasa Education, Personnel and Administrative Reforms and Power. Besides Banerjee, 35 ministers from Trinamool Congress and two from the Congress took oath on...
07:28 AM, May 21, 2011
On The Last Word, Karan Thapar discusses how post poll surveys and exit polls performed this time. ...
12:21 AM, May 21, 2011
Kolkata: Manish Gupta and Amit Mitra, who defeated former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta respectively in the West Bengal Assembly elections, on Friday found berth in the new cabinet headed by Mamata Banerjee. Gupta, former chief secretary, and Mitra, former FICCI secretary general, won from the key constituencies of Jadavpur and Khardah respectively. Rabi Ranjan Chattopadhya, another giant killer who trounced former Industry Minister Nirupam Sen,...
08:00 PM, May 20, 2011
Kolkata: Eighteen years after she vowed never to set foot again in Writers' Building from where she was forcefully evicted while on dharna with a rape victim before Jyoti Basu's chamber, Mamata Banerjee on Friday stepped in as Chief Minister. Banerjee, then a Union minister of state and a Congress leader, had sat on a three-hour long dharna before Basu's chamber with a deaf and dumb rape victim from Nadia...
07:23 PM, May 20, 2011
