Union Home Minister Amit Shah will participate in BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari's nomination filing from the Bhabanipur assembly constituency in the city and accompany him during a roadshow in the area on Thursday, party leaders said. Shah will join Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, in a show of strength in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's political bastion. According to BJP leaders, Shah and Adhikari will begin a roadshow from Hazra Crossing around noon. The party's state president Samik Bhattacharya will also accompany them. The roadshow will pass through different parts of Bhabanipur before ending at the Survey Building, where Adhikari will file his nomination papers. Party sources said the convoy will stop around 200 metres before the Survey Building, and Shah will walk with Adhikari to the office where the BJP leader will submit his papers. BJP leaders said Shah's participation in the nomination filing was intended to underline the importance t
A high-stakes electoral battle unfolds in West Bengal as candidate reshuffles, voter roll revisions, and shifting political narratives redefine the contest
Betting on calibrated generational change and organisational loyalty rather than star power, the ruling TMC on Tuesday unveiled candidates for 291 of the 294 West Bengal assembly seats, signalling a strategy of controlled churn as it seeks a fourth straight term in office. The Mamata Banerjee-Suvendu Adhikari rivalry is set to acquire a fresh electoral theatre in Bhabanipur, where the chief minister will defend her seat even as the BJP has fielded the leader of opposition from the constituency. The stage is set for a direct face-off between the two rivals who first clashed in Nandigram in the 2021 assembly polls, when Adhikari defeated his former mentor by a narrow margin despite the TMC's sweeping victory across the state. Announcing the list from her Kalighat residence, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said the party would leave the three Darjeeling hills seats to ally Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) led by Anit Thapa and expressed confidence of crossing .
Earlier this week, Suvendu wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner, alleging a violation of the "neutrality" principle and misuse of police by the TMC government during the SIR exercise
Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Saturday alleged that the state administration was involved in manipulating the electoral rolls during the ongoing SIR, and that senior officials were personally intervening to retain ineligible names in the voter list. He said the Election Commission (EC) should have acted "a little more swiftly" during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Speaking to reporters in Siliguri in north Bengal, Adhikari said, "The EC depends on the state machinery, which is indulged in fraud." "The state machinery is trying to include the names of Bangladeshi infiltrators in the voter list," he alleged. Adhikari claimed that senior officials were making direct calls to district-level authorities, including the district election officers, electoral registration officers and assistant electoral registration officers to ensure certain names remain on the voter rolls "in a wrong manner". "These allegedly ...
Ratcheting up the political temperature around the SIR, senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari has written to CEC Gyanesh Kumar, accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of trying to undermine the Election Commission and shield an illicit vote-bank her party has nurtured for years. Adhikari's letter to the CEC came hours after Banerjee's communication to the poll panel on Thursday in which she slammed the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as chaotic and coercive. The Leader of the Opposition in the assembly hit back late on Thursday with a four-page counter, calling her missive to the EC misleading, politically motivated and factually distorted. He dubbed the CM's objections as nothing less than a desperate attempt to derail a clean-up drive that threatens her political ecosystem. The Chief Minister's letter is a calculated attempt to sow discord among election officials, discredit the ECI's constitutional mandate and protect a vote-bank of ineligible and .
Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday accused the Trinamool Congress of "helping" Rohingya infiltrators to settle in the state by providing them fake documents. Speaking at the 'Bijoy Sankalp' rally at Gangarampur in Dakshin Dinajpur district, Adhikari said that if the TMC government is not dislodged in the next assembly elections, then the day is not far when the demography of the state will change. He claimed that the BJP was not against Indian Muslims, but "We are against Rohingya infiltrators who will be detected, their names deleted and finally deported once the BJP comes to power." About the oft-repeated claims by TMC, Congress and Left parties that BJP is anti-Muslim, Adhikari said, "I had never said we don't need Muslim votes... Instead, I had wondered why we are not getting their (Muslim) votes. I think they are being used by TMC for the votebank politics." "Didn't they get the benefits of Modiji's (PM Narendra Modi) social welfare ...
Adhikari suspected that the West Bengal Administration is issuing domicile certificates to Rohingya Muslims and illegal Bangladeshi immigrants
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday claimed that there are 1.25 crore illegal immigrants in the voters' list of West Bengal, and all of them will be sent back following a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the rolls. Addressing a programme in Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district, Adhikari maintained that Hindus who migrated due to religious persecution need not be worried about the exercise. "If around 50 lakh names were excluded in Bihar, Bengal could have as many as 1.25 crore such names. All Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in West Bengal will be pushed back after the SIR," he said. "No one will be able to save the chief minister this time. All the looting and corruption will come to an end. The instances of false voting will reduce. Those who used to cast false votes will be weeded out," he added. Adhikari "warned" government officers to act with integrity, and said district-level officers who fail to do so will be in trouble. The ruling TMC rejected his comments as ...
His remarks came after AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj clarified that while the party continues to support and raise key Opposition issues, it is no longer formally a part of the INDIA bloc
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday said that he would release the names of 50 leaders of the TMC's students' wing who are allegedly targeting pupils, specifically women, like Monojit Mishra, the prime accused in the rape case at a law college in south Kolkata. Adhikari alleged that all these leaders belong to the 'bhaipo (nephew) gang', an apparent reference to TMC's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is the nephew of CM Mamata Banerjee. "This is one of the main factors why I left the TMC in 2020. I was not ready to tolerate their excesses," he said. "I will release on Tuesday afternoon the names of at least 50 members of 'bhaipo gang' who are running havoc on the campuses," he said. Adhikari announced that on August 9, the first anniversary of the rape and murder of the RG Kar hospital doctor, three rallies would be organised and all of them will converge at state secretariat Nabanna in Howrah, demanding justice from the government. "The parents of
West Bengal BJP leaders led by state unit president Sukanta Majumdar were prevented by the police from visiting violence-hit Maheshtala in South 24 Parganas district on Thursday, a day after the area witnessed group clashes. Union minister Majumdar and other leaders were stopped by police enroute to Maheshtala, following which they held a protest in Kolkata's Kalighat area near the residence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee when they were detained and released later. In a post on X, Majumdar said, "Just yesterday, the same @WBPolice were forced to wave white cloths in surrender before radical jihadists in Rabindranagar -- spineless, helpless, and humiliated. And today, suddenly, they appear to be warriors -- zealously following Chief Minister @MamataOfficial's orders with blind obedience, immersed in servitude!" "Today, as we moved toward Maheshtala to stand beside the attacked Hindus, the administration blocked our path citing Section 163. And when we later went to Kalighat, to th
Earlier in the day, BSF constable Purnam Kumar Shaw was repatriated to India after spending 21 days in Pakistani custody
Adhikari noted that the state administration has sought BSF deployment in Murshidabad to control the situation
Calcutta HC allows Howrah Ram Navami rally from 3-5 pm with conditions: no arms or motorcycles permitted; rally must remain peaceful under proper police supervision
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the building where the incident happened was a crude bomb manufacturing unit
The BJP leaders in the State have been targeting Mamata Banerjee, accusing her government of giving permission to illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingya migrants to settle in the State
Adhikari accused Banerjee of indulging in 'low-level politics' by blaming the BSF for infiltration, stating that the security forces serve the nation, not the government
Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal assembly and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday targeted the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government, alleging scam in the ration distribution.Launching an attack in a post on X, he said that the multi-crore ration distribution "scam" is still going on in West Bengal despite the arrest of former Food and Supplies Minister Jyotipriya Mallick and his aides.He claimed that the rice meant to be distributed through the Public Distribution System (PDS) is sent to privately owned rice mills and further polished to sell in the open market.He shared a video of a rice mill, which he alleged was polishing the rice meant to be distributed through the Public Distribution System (PDS)."This video illustrates how the multi-crore Ration Distribution Scam is still going on in West Bengal despite the arrest of former Food & Supplies Minister Jyotipriya Mallick and his aides," Adikari wrote in his X post."First of all, tonnes of rice meant to .
He said this while holding a protest march in Behala against the arrest of ISKCON Bangladesh priest Chinmoy Krishna Das