The byelections to three Assembly constituencies — English Bazar, Rejinagar and Nalhati — passed off peacefully. CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose gave the credit for this to the deployment of huge Central security forces. “It is true that the bypolls were completely peaceful but this was because of the heavy presence of Central security forces in all three constituencies,” he added.

At a time when KMC is plagued by financial crisis and trident scam, the Union urban development department has sent a letter to the KMC asking the civic board to come clean on the various Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) projects undertaken by the civic body.

Former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has accused the ministers of the Mamata Banerjee government and the Trinamul Congress MLAs of extorting money in the name of festivals.

Villagers backed by Trinamul Congress activists stopped the production and transportation work of Essar Energy Group at Loudaha police station area in Durgapur in Burdwan district on Sunday. This was not the first time that the villagers had interrupted the production work. On January 28, the group’s production was stopped by the Trinamul backed-villagers at Kanksa area in the same district.

Union minister of state for railway and Murshidabad district Congress president Adhir Chowdhury called a 12-hour bandh in Murshidabad district on February 13 to protest against the “false cases” against his party workers.

The 37th International Kolkata Book Fair came to an end on Sunday with a sea of humanity thronging the fairground to soak in the final hour of festivity. Failing to resist the temptation of a visit to the book fair on the last day, the crowd braved the transportation woes and the crammed environment to join in the jamboree.

A youth was shot at by a gang of anti-socials in broad daylight as he tried to stop them from molesting a teeange girl at Baranagar, on the northern outskirts of the city, on Saturday afternoon.

In what must have come as music to chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s ears, well-known writer Mahasweta Devi on Saturday said that the people of Bengal had full faith in the chief minister and they were optimistic that she would fulfil all their aspirations.

Further hardening their stand, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Biman Gurung on Saturday said that chief minister Mamata Banerjee would have to come to Darjeeling and apologise to the people even as the 12-hour bandh crippled normal life in the hills.

Four persons were arrested by a special staff port division (SSPD) team on Saturday morning for allegedly smuggling a consignment of ganja.