Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari is likely to inaugurate the month-long Shravani Mela at the historic Jalpesh temple, a revered shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva, in Jalpaiguri on 20 July, according to highly placed sources.
He said Darjeeling would be developed as the state's first world-class tourism destination, while the second destination would be identified as part of the government's long-term tourism strategy.
With TMC divided into factions, numbers suggest that the three BJP candidates are almost certain to win the by-elections.
The Election Commission of India’s recent announcement of by-elections to three Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal, which fell vacant following the resignations of Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik — the three Trinamool Congress MPs who stepped down after the party’s debacle in the recent West Bengal Assembly elections — has brought the focus back on the former MPs and the BJP’s plans for them.
In West Bengal, the BJP is set to secure victory in all three Rajya Sabha seats as Trinamool Congress may not be in the race due to internal rebellion
Darjeeling MP Raju Bista has urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Dr CV Ananda Bose to immediately intervene and stop the proposed merger of Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) battalions, calling the move a “serious injustice” to the force and to the youths of the Hills, Terai and Dooars.
In a heart-wrenching incident in Howrah district, three schoolchildren were killed and two others injured after a school van lost control and plunged into a roadside pond at Bahira in Uluberia on Monday afternoon.
With the Assembly elections drawing closer the Trinamul Congress (TMC) appears to have strategically stepped into a long-simmering agitation involving hundreds of Matua community members, who recently received eviction notices from the railways authorities.
Trivedi alleged that Jharkhand minister Irfan Ansari had openly stated that if any booth-level officer from the Election Commission came merely to collect information, “he should be taken hostage.” He questioned whether such statements did not put the Constitution at risk, adding that “wherever the INDIA alliance comes to power, the spirit of the Constitution is sidelined.”
CM Banerjee asked CEC Kumar if this was being done under pressure from a political party to advance their partisan interests.
