In a cruel irony of fate, state Director General of Police, Bhupinder Singh, who must have put hundreds of criminals in the dock had to stand in a dock himself and plead guilty. The drama that had started unfolding in the state Assembly on Thursday over the flash of the cellphone camera of the state Director General of Police ended on Friday morning under the direction of Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim in the House.

Will a “disappointed” West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee attend the CPI(M) central committee meeting slated to be held from July 21 to 23 in New Delhi?

Defending his decision to withdraw support from the UPA-1, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Tuesday made it clear that the Congress was as big an enemy for the Left as the BJP. He was clearly sending a message to the Bengal lobby. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose who

Defending his decision to withdraw support from the UPA-1, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Tuesday made it clear that the Congress was as big an enemy for the Left as the BJP. He was clearly sending a message to the Bengal lobby as Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose who had been advocating a soft approach towards the Congress were sitting by his side when Mr Karat made these observations.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Thursday gave the first Jyoti Basu memorial lecture in the state Assembly. Present on the occasion were state CPI(M) leaders, including chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state party secretary Biman Bose. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, politburo members Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechury were conspicuous by their absence.

The CPI(M)’s Bengal lobby in private agreed that it was some policy decisions of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government which were responsible for this state of affairs.
This development is an endorsement of party general secretary Prakash Karat’s line. Since the Lok Sabha debacle, Mr Karat had been insisting that state-related factors

Giving a wake-up call to its ranks, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, on the day of completion of 33 years of Left Front’s power in Bengal, said that the party will have to do an introspection to do a turnaround within the time span left before the Assembly polls in 2011.

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee acknowledged Sunday that the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh headed by Arjun Singh had taken the decision in December 1984 to send Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson out of Bhopal in view of the deteriorating law and order situation there following the gas disaster.

Left red-faced by media reports that he had chanted Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s popular Ma, Mati, Manush slogan, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose on Thursday took pains to clarify his position.

Realising that they can’t beat the Trinamul Congress, the beleaguered CPI(M) has decided to ape them. State secretary of the Marxist party, Biman Bose on Wednesday raised a slogan which has become the clarion call of Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. Perhaps after the back-to-back poll debacles, it has dawned on the CPI(M) leaders that Ms Banerjee’s slogan “Ma Mati Manush (mother, land, people)” has got the popular imagination.