Tag: Bengal

  • Heavy rainfall likely to lash Bengal, Odisha till October 20

    By PTI

    BHUBANESWAR/KOLKATA: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday said heavy rainfall is likely to occur in West Bengal and Odisha till October 20 due to a low-pressure area formed over north Telangana and strong southeasterly wind from the Bay of Bengal.

    It advised fishermen of the two states not to venture into the sea till Tuesday.

    Under the influence of the low-pressure area, squally weather with surface wind speed reaching 40-50 kilometres per hour gusting to 60 kmph is very likely to prevail over the deep sea areas of North Bay of Bengal till October 19, the IMD said.

    It warned of a rise in water level in rivers, waterlogging in low-lying areas and landslides in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts of West Bengal due to the downpour.

    In Odisha, which is already passing through a wet spell, the state government alerted the district authorities to keep a close watch on the situation.

    Standing crops in fields, with paddy being almost ready for harvest in several districts of West Bengal, could get damaged, said Sanjib Bandopadhyay, Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.

    Some of the southern districts of the state, including Howrah, Hooghly and East Medinipur, have recently experienced floods owing to downpour and overflowing rivers.

    Bandopadhyay said the southern districts of the state were lashed by rain from Sunday, while North Bengal districts will experience enhanced rainfall from Monday.

    Sources in the weather office of Bhubaneswar said rainfall occurred in parts of Sundergarh, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapada and Jagatsinghpur since Saturday.

    For Monday, the IMD forecast heavy rainfall and thunderstorm in districts such as Sundergarh, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur.

    The Special Relief Commissioner has directed all district collectors to monitor the situation.

  • Another Bengal BJP MLA Krishna Kalyani expresses anguish against party leadership

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Expressing his anguish against the party’s leadership, BJP’s Raiganj MLA Krishna Kalyani on Sunday said he will take a decision on his political future soon if his grievances are not addressed.

    Speaking to reporters, Kalyani said those leaving the BJP must have serious grievances which have not been taken care of.

    “I have distanced myself from all programmes of the party and have given a deadline by which, issues raised by me should be addressed or else I will have to think,” he said.

    Kalyani, however, did not elaborate on his grievances.

    Asked whether he will join some other party, Kalyani said that he was contemplating options and would make public his decision at the right time.

    MP Babul Supriyo and four MLAs, including Mukul Roy, have left the BJP to join TMC after assembly election results were declared on May 2.

    “It has to be seen on what circumstances they are leaving,” Kalyani said.

    The TMC district leadership in Uttar Dinajpur said that they would welcome Kalyani to the party.

  • 24-year-old migrant worker lynched on suspicion of being thief in Bengal

    By PTI

    MALDA: A 24-year-old migrant worker, who had returned home in Malda district from Nagpur, was beaten to death by a mob suspecting him to be a thief, police said on Sunday.

    A group of people of Pipultala village under Harishchandrapur police station caught Pratap Mandal, tied his hands and legs with ropes and iron chains and severely assaulted him on Friday night.

    Mondal, a resident of neighbouring Malior village, was first taken to a local hospital from where he was referred to Chachal Super Speciality Hospital and he succumbed to injuries there on Saturday night.

    His body was sent for postmortem examination on Sunday.

    Inspector in-charge of Harishchandrapur police station Sanjay Kumar Das said investigations are on and the culprits will not be spared.

    His mother Sanju Mondal claimed her son was not a thief and demanded exemplary punishment for the killers.

  • BJP MLA Tanmoy Ghosh joins TMC in Bengal, alleges ‘vindictive politics’ by saffron party

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Bishnupur MLA Tanmoy Ghosh joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday, alleging that his BJP was indulging in vindictive politics.

    Speaking to reporters, Ghosh claimed that the BJP was also attempting to trigger chaos among the people of West Bengal, because of which he joined the TMC.

    “I urge all to join the TMC for the welfare of West Bengal. There is a need to strengthen the hands of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,” he said.

    BJP is doing vindictive politics and attempting to create chaos among the people of the state, Ghosh said, adding that these were the reason for him to join the TMC.

    He had switched over to the BJP from TMC in March, days ahead of the state elections.

    Earlier, he was the TMC Youth president of Bishnupur town in Bankura district and also a councillor of the local civic body.

    Welcoming Ghosh to the party fold, state Education Minister Bratya Basu said BJP is trying to take post-poll revenge against the TMC.

    “We will fight the BJP politically. It is also trying to belittle the people of West Bengal,” he said.

    Basu said many BJP leaders are in touch with the TMC.

    “We appeal to all to join the TMC. But, who will be taken in will be decided by the party leadership,” he said.

    The BJP won 77 of the 292 seats of West Bengal assembly that went to the polls.

    The Trinamool Congress won 213 seats, while ISF and GJM bagged one seat each.

    Voting in Jangipur and Samserganj had to be postponed after the death of one candidate each in the two seats.

    BJP MLAs Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar resigned to retain their Lok Sabha seats, while Mukul Roy switched over to the TMC.

    However, Roy continues to be a BJP MLA officially.

    Basu said BJP MLAs of Tripura are also in touch with the TMC.

    “When Mamata Banerjee steps in Tripura, there will be a tsunami. BJP leaders of that state are pretty aware of this,” he said.

    “Tripura under BJP has been transformed into a valley of fear,” Basu alleged.

  • In most cases in Bengal post-poll violence, suspects shown as fugitive by police: CBI

    Express News Service

    KOLKATA: The CBI has so far received details of 60 cases of post-poll violence in West Bengal from the state administration. 

    In most of the incidents, the accused were shown as fugitives, the central agency said.

    “We received 60 post-poll violence cases from 17 districts. The details of the investigation conducted by the state police are showing that the suspects are at large in most of the cases. We are studying each of the cases thoroughly,” said a CBI officer.

    The officer said the central agency might interrogate the suspects, who were arrested by the state police, in jail.

    ALSO READ | Bengal’s wrong policies hurting farmers, says BJP leader Dilip Ghosh

    A team of CBI sleuths visited the house of Sobharani Mondal, an elderly woman who was murdered by alleged Trinamool Congress supporters at Jagatdal in North 24 Parganas district. They recorded statements of the deceased’s family members.

    The CBI formed four teams, each headed by a joint director, to conduct the probe directed by Calcutta High Court. Altogether, 109 officers have been engaged in the probe. The CBI registered 11 new FIRs and all of them are in south Bengal districts.

    Acting on the report submitted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the high court ordered the CBI to probe into grievous crimes such as murder, rape, and attempt to rape.

    Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, meanwhile, lashed out at the BJP-led central government alleging it was using agencies such as NHRC and CBI to score its political goals. “In its report, the commission said five BJP workers and 16 TMC workers were killed in post-poll violence. BJP is planting its members in the rights body. How many times did you send NHRC to Uttar Pradesh?” she asked.

  • No question of allying with TMC in Bengal, not averse to joining hands nationally: Sitaram Yechury

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury Friday ruled out the possibility of allying with Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal but the Left party will not hesitate to join hands with opposition parties, including TMC nationally to defeat BJP.

    There are “contradictions” in the approach of the two parties in fighting BJP and there is no question of an alliance with the ruling TMC in Bengal as it has inflicted atrocities on grassroot level CPI(M) workers, he said.

    At the same time he said, “No other political party can be compared to BJP which is trying to destroy the Constitution of the country…BJP as the most dangerous threat to the idea of India”, Yechury told a press conference here, “There is no question of joining hands with TMC because of the contradiction on the ground.

    The TMC attacks our workers at the ground level.

    Why are there attacks on the red party volunteers and people who demand that vaccination be done impartially? If such things happen, there will be resistance”.

    “However, nationally we have already identified BJP as the main enemy and no party can be compared with it. Nationally we will continue our participation in the unity of secular opposition parties.

    “Both the TMC supremo and I had joined various opposition meetings where I had prepared the opposition draft and she had signed it,” he said.

    Yechury, who was in the city to take part in the state committee meeting, said the political situations at the state and the Centre are not the same.

    “In Kerala we are fighting against the Congress but at the national level we are fighting against the BJP. So political decisions are taken based on concrete situations,” he said.

    The communist party, which has been pushed to the margin of Bengal politics after failing to open its account in the last assembly poll in the state it had ruled for 34 years till 2011, is divided on whether to join hands with TMC or not to fight against BJP in the state, political observers said.

    The party is faced with a similar question in Tripura where TMC hopes to gain ground by fighting against the BJP government.

    The CPI (M)-led Left Front is the main opposition in the northeastern state.

    “Those who were in TMC in Tripura have joined BJP. Later some of them became ministers in the BJP cabinet. The TMC does not have any base in Tripura. It is the Left which is fighting against the saffron onslaught there,” Yechury said.

    Admitting that coinage of terms such as “BJMOOL” equating BJP and TMC during the West Bengal assembly polls was a mistake and the party’s central leadership has taken note of it, Yechury said.

    “It was decided by the CPI(M) central committee that its main target was the BJP. Even then equating the two (BJP and TMC) was wrong. The central committee discussed the issue and said it was wrong. The state committee too said it was wrong,” he said.

    The CPI-M Parliamentary group leader said the COVID-19 mismanagement by the central government and the virtual destruction of the country’s economy by its policies is causing severe misery to the people.

    He blamed the BJP government for its obdurate refusal to discuss the Pegasus spyware surveillance issue and for displaying an “unprecedented brazen refusal” to be accountable to the Parliament.

    “Instead of answering the questions, the government tried to escape any accountability and even evaded answering the issue in the Parliament,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the CPI(M) state committee has proposed to set an age-limit of 60 for entry in it.

    “There is a proposal that after the next state conference later this year the upper age limit for entry into the state committee will be fixed at 60. Suppose a leader has attained 60, then he/she will not be eligible for entry to the state committee. For existing members if a leader has attained the age of 72, then he/she will be dropped from the state unit,” a senior CPI(M) leader said on condition of anonymity.

  • Eight labourers killed, 17 others injured as speeding van overturns in Bengal

    By PTI
    CANNING: Eight labourers were killed and 17 others injured when a pick-up van overturned in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, police said on Monday.

    The accident occurred around 11.45 pm on Sunday, they said.

    The speeding vehicle, carrying close to 25 people, first hit an electric pole, then smashed into a tree before turning turtle, a police officer said.

    Five labourers died on the spot, and three others breathed their last at Chittaranjan Hospital in Kolkata, he said.

    Among the injured, five have been released, while 10 people are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

    “We have apprehended the driver and registered a case against him and the owner of the offending vehicle,” Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) of Baruipur Police District, Indrajit Basu, said.

    The South 24 Parganas district administration has handed over compensation amount of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased, officials said.

  • Bengal FM Amit Mitra writes to Union Minister Sitharaman against privatisation of insurance companies

    By PTI
    KOKATA: West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra wrote to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, urging her not to go ahead with the privatisation of public insurance companies.

    He said the move to privatise has brought a great sense of insecurity and distress among the people of the country.

    “May I express my shock and alarm at the policy decision of the Government of India venturing to privatise public sector insurance companies which are the pillars of the economy,” Mitra said in the letter.

    The government plans to privatise public general insurer United India Insurance Company in the first instance as well as sell-off Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), considered to be the fulcrum of financial security for most of the Indians, he said.

    Privatisation of LIC, which has a massive quantum of investments in the economy running into Rs 36.76 lakh crore, will open up a ‘Pandora’s Box’ and throw into insecurity 30 crore policyholders, he said.

    The privatisation of United India Insurance will cause major disruption and destabilise the future of almost two crore retail insurers, Mitra added.

    The privatisation will initiate hydra-headed financial problems while undermining the confidence of the common retail insurers of the poorer sections of the society, he said.

  • Subhas Sarkar: BJP’s Bengal organisation man finds place in Narendra Modi’s Cabinet

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: A seasoned war horse of the BJP in West Bengal, Bankura MP Subhas Sarkar has been the saffron party’s organisation man in the state for long.

    On Wednesday, he found a berth in the Union Cabinet.

    He was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bankura constituency in 2019, defeating Trinamool Congress (TMC) heavyweight and state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee.

    Sarkar, who was the vice-president of the West Bengal BJP from 2013, was a contender for the state party chief’s post in 2015, but was made the general secretary instead.

    An organisational man, Sarkar was made the vice-president of the saffron party’s state unit again in 2017.

    After securing the third position in Bankura in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Sarkar went on to win the seat five years later, increasing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) vote share by nearly 29 per cent compared to the 20 per cent it bagged in 2014.

    Born in 1953, Sarkar is a doctor by profession and a permanent resident of Bankura.

    He is also a member of the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare as well as the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

  • Santanu Thakur: An influential Matua community leader from Bengal

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: It was a family feud that brought Shantanu Thakur into politics and now he is one of the most influential leaders of the politically-crucial Matua community of West Bengal.

    Thirty-eight-year-old Shantanu Thakur, Lok Sabha member from Bongoan parliamentary seat who was sworn in as a union minister this evening, is one of the heir apparents of the influential Thakurbari a socio-religious sect formed by his ancestors Harichand-Guruchand Thakur- for the uplift of the Matuas, the second-largest scheduled caste community of the state.

    A graduate by education, Shantanu Thakur, the eldest son of former TMC minister Manjul Krishna Thakur, was more into the development of the Matuas through various social services run by the Thakurbari in Thakurnagar and was never into politics.

    Matuas, with their sheer size of the population and tendency to vote en bloc, just like the minorities, make for an enviable vote bank that all the political parties had tried to secure since the nineties.

    TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had first reached out to the Matuas around a decade ago.

    She nominated Manjul Thakur as a candidate in 2011 and inducted him in her ministry as a minister of state.

    In 2014, Manjul’s elder brother Kapil Krishna Thakur was nominated as a TMC candidate from the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat, which he had won hands down.

    But it was the sudden death of Kapil Krishna in October 2014 that kick-started the family feud between his widow Mamata Bala Thakur and his brother-in-law Manjul Krishna.

    Manjul wanted his youngest son Subrata Thakur to be nominated by the party for the by-election from the Bongaon seat, but the party leadership instead decided to nominate Mamata Bala.

    An infuriated Manjul Krishna quit the state cabinet to join the BJP and got Subrata, a party ticket to contest from the seat in February 2015, but he came third.

    Although Manjul Krishna returned to the TMC after few months but was never inducted back into the ministry; the party affairs in the area were handed over to Mamata Bala, the newly elected TMC MP Bongoan.

    But after his father was denied a ticket in the 2016 assembly polls and was cornered in the internal politics over the control of Thakurbari, Shantanu started hobnobbing with the saffron party.

    It was in February 2019, following a socio-religious meeting of the Matua community, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed, that Sanatanu decided to join active politics, and within a month, he was given nomination from the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat.

    Ridding on the promise of implementation of CAA and NRC, Shantanu won the seat by defeating his aunt and became one of the key leaders of the BJP in the state.

    He had also accompanied Modi to Bangladesh during his last visit to Dhaka in the middle of the Bengal assembly polls, which also included a tour to Orakandi in Gopalgank district in Bangladesh where the founder of the Matua sect and social reformer Harichand Thakur was born.

    Voting patterns in the recently-held assembly elections showed that the Matuas did not vote en-bloc for any one party and preferred to split their vote between the ruling TMC and the BJP.

    His induction in the union ministry is seen as an attempt to woo back the community, which exhorts influence in at least five Lok Sabha seats in Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas districts, ahead of the 2024 general elections.