Abhishek Banerjee

ED Issues Fresh Summons To Abhishek Banerjee

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a fresh summon to Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee. He has been asked to join the ED investigation on October 9, sources said.

The ED had earlier summoned Banerjee on October 3. However, Banerjee did not appear at the ED office on that date, owing to the party’s MGNREGA protests in Delhi on the same date.

Banerjee alleged that it was a tactic used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government to squash the protests.

“The fight against the deprivation of WB and its rightful dues shall persist regardless of the obstacles. No force on Earth can hinder my dedication to fight for the people of WB and their fundamental rights. I’ll b in Delhi joining the protest on Oct 2nd & 3rd. STOP ME IF U CAN!” Banerjee said in a post on ‘X’.

The TMC general secretary had also alleged that the ED was summoning on days when he had pre-announced public programs.

“Earlier this month, the ED summoned me on a day coinciding with an important coordinating meeting of #INDIA. I dutifully appeared and complied with the served summons,” Banerjee pointed out in an earlier post on X.

The ED had summoned Abhishek Banerjee under section 50 of the PMLA. The summons to Banerjee came after the central probe agency conducted raids in the office of ‘Leaps and Bounds Pvt Ltd’ which the federal agency alleged was “used for making dubious transactions running into crores of rupees.” The ED claimed that Banerjee is the chief executive officer of the company.

Banerjee was earlier summoned by the ED in connection with the alleged teacher recruitment scam in September.

Abhsihek Banerjee on Tuesday had led TMC protests against the Centre in Delhi over what the party said was the centre’s refusal to provide funds to the state.

The TMC alleged that the Centre has been withholding Rs 15,000 crore in dues to the state under schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and PM Awas Yojana.

Several TMC leaders including Abhishek Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien were also detained by the Delhi Police during the protest. (ANI)

Read More: https://lokmarg.com/

'Stree 2' shooting

‘Stree 2’: RajKummar, Shraddha Begin Shooting For Horror-Comedy Sequel

Bollywood actors Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor, on Tuesday began the shooting for their next film, the horror comedy sequel ‘Stree 2’.

Taking to Instagram, actor RajKummar Rao shared a special video and announced the news.
He captioned the video, “Ek baar phir, Chanderi mein faila aantak! Stree 2 filming begins! Aa rahi hai woh- August 2024!”

The video hints that the sequel might be having two ghosts this time as it was written “sarkate ka aatank” in Hindi in the clip.

Helmed by Amar Kaushik, the film stars RajKummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana and Abhishek Banerjee in the lead roles.

It is all set to hit the theatres in August 2024.

Soon after the actor dropped the video, fans flooded the comment section with red hearts and fire emoticons.

Bhumi Pednekar commented, “Caaaaaant wait guys.”

“Most awaited movie,” a fan wrote.

Another fan commented, “Omg !!!!!!!!! Very excited for this.”

Makers of the upcoming horror comedy film officially announced their film at a grand event in Mumbai in April where the team enacted a skit to announce the release date of the horror comedy sequel. The ‘Stree 2’ cast recently met for the script reading sessions.

Helmed by Amar Kaushik ‘Stree’ was released in the year 2018 and was declared a blockbuster hit. Rajkummar and Aparshakti also had a cameo in Varun Dhawan’s horror comedy film ‘Bhediya’ which was released in November last year. The makers of ‘Bhediya’ also announced the sequel of the film.

At the gala, Varun unveiled the logo of ‘Bhediya 2’ and even made a wolf sound, expressing his excitement.

Meanwhile, RajKummar will also be seen in ‘Mr and Mrs Mahi’ opposite actor Janhvi Kapoor and in Srikant Bholla’s biopic ‘SRI’ opposite Alaya F. (ANI)

Read more: http://13.232.95.176/

Actor Rajkummar Rao Stree

Rajkummar Reunites With ‘Stree’ Co-stars

Actor Rajkummar Rao reunited with the star cast of his horror comedy film ‘Stree’ Aparshakti Khurana and Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday.

Taking to Instagram, director Amar Kaushik shared a couple of pictures and captioned it, “Aao Kabhi Haveli Pe Feels like Deja Vu !!!”

In the pictures, Rajkummar, Aparshakti and Abhishek could be seen sitting on a couch and looking at their tablets.

Soon after he shared the picture, fans flooded the comment section with red hearts and fire emoticons and shared their excitement for ‘Stree 2’.

Actor Bhumi Pednekar commented, “Part 2 coming.”

“Can’t wait for Bhediya2 and stree2,” a fan commented.

A user commented, “Seems cool! Can’t waittt.”

The key highlight of the pictures were the ‘Stree’ and ‘Bhediya’ mannequins in the background.

Makers of the upcoming horror comedy film ‘Stree 2’, officially announced their film at a grand event in Mumbai in April where the team enacted a skit to announce the release date of the horror comedy sequel.

The team revealed that ‘Stree 2’ is set to release on August 31, 2024 and will also star Pankaj Tripathi and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles.

Helmed by Amar Kaushik ‘Stree’ was released in the year 2018 and was declared a blockbuster hit.

Rajkummar and Aparshakti also had a cameo in Varun Dhawan’s horror comedy film ‘Bhediya’ which was released in November last year.

The makers of ‘Bhediya’ also announced the sequel of the film. At the gala, Varun unveiled the logo of Bhediya 2 and even made a wolf sound, expressing his excitement.

Earlier, Abhishek Banerjee also talked about the much-awaited sequel of ‘Stree’ and said, “2023 is here!!! And I am very thrilled to kickstart this year, but looking back at the work I did last year- I was very nervous about JD aka Jana as it had to be similar yet difficult from Stree. But thankfully it was received well by the audience. Now the journey of Stree 2 will be super exciting.. recently I wrapped up Apurva. I’m thrilled to see how people will react to some very extreme characters. The playground is going to get bigger and better this year… so I am looking forward to it.”

Meanwhile, Rajkummar will also be seen in an upcoming sports drama film ‘Mr and Mrs Mahi’ opposite Janhvi Kapoor. (ANI)

Read More: lokmarg.com

Nuts & Bolts of Mamata’s Not-So-Nutty Plan For Goa

When the assembly elections in the tiny Indian state of Goa (population: 1.60 million) are held in February 2022, a prominent contestant for a slice of the 40 seats in the state will be Ms. Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC). The “All India” part of her party’s name could seem a bit of a misnomer because, at least in terms of the number of seats that the party has won in states other than West Bengal in recent years. It is predominantly a regional political party from West Bengal where Ms. Banerjee has served two consecutive terms as chief minister and is currently serving her third.

But could that change? Ms. Banerjee’s ambition of spreading her political domain to regions other than Bengal is not new. In the past, her party has contested assembly elections in other states: in 2001, in Assam her party won a seat; in Manipur, in 2012, she won seven; in the same year, in Uttar Pradesh, she won one seat, and in Tripura, in 2016, she managed to get six Congress legislators to defect to her party. But her party’s faring has been patchy. In Manipur, where she had seven, she lost six seats in the 2017 elections and has just one now. In Punjab, in 2017, she fielded 20 candidates but none of them won.

Tripura, Manipur, and parts of Assam (particularly in the south where Bengali speaking population is considerably large) are actually low-hanging fruit for Ms. Banerjee. Tripura and Manipur are small and not too distant from her home base and with the right kind of alliances, she could make inroads in those states. But these moves have at best been relatively small ones and not part of a bigger plan to spread the AITMC’s wings.

Till now. Enter Abhishek Banerjee, her 34-year-old nephew and MP, who was appointed as the party’s national general secretary this summer. Banerjee’s rise within the party that his aunt leads has been phenomenal. He has also been in the eye of several unseemly controversies, including having ongoing charges against him in cases of money laundering and disproportionate assets.  But it is Abhishek who is driving Mamata’s party’s national strategy to spread its presence outside West Bengal.

That strategy, as it begins to unfold, is about AITMC venturing out of its comfort zone in West Bengal and its smaller neighbouring states and taking a shy at fresh challenges. And the tactics that make up that strategy seem to be varied. Recently, Abhishek convinced Mamata to get on board Sushmita Dev, the daughter of the late Congress leader Santosh Mohan Dev, who was a veteran politician from Assam and Tripura and Union minister for many years. It was a sort of a coup that could give the AITMC a bigger foothold in, at least, a part of southern Assam.

The reason behind the national strategy is simple. With a broader footprint across India, the AITMC could shed its Bengal-centricity but it could also give Mamata Banerjee the credibility and a raison d’etre for pitching herself as a challenger and alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a notion that has often been raised, particularly after her party’s victory for the third time in West Bengal.

ALSO READ: Mamata In A New Challenger Avatar

The tactic of going to Goa to fight the 2022 elections has an interesting background. Let’s begin with political strategist Prashant Kishor. No other electoral strategist in India is as famous as Kishor has been. He has worked for parties of every stripe: from national parties such as the BJP and the Congress; and for regional parties such as Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh, the DMK in Tamil Nadu, AAP in Delhi, and now the AITMC. Kishor is not only AITMC’s strategic consultant but, it is learnt, that he has a five-year contract with the party, an arrangement of that kind that has not been common in India.

What is more, Kishor is the main brain behind the Goa foray by Mamata. If Abhishek is the driver, Kishor is the navigator. Kishor did a detailed survey of the electoral situation and mood in Goa’s 40 assembly constituencies and came back with the findings that the voters of Goa (where the BJP leads the government although it won 13 seats to Congress’s 17 in 2017) are not happy with either of the two central parties. Although the BJP upstaged the Congress in the 2017 elections because it was faster in forging alliances than the latter and proved a majority in the assembly, thereby forming the government, it is not invincible as it had been before. The death of Manohar Parrikar (who was BJP’s chief minister for three terms before he died in 2017) has dealt a blow to BJP’s clout in Goa. The party’s current chief minister Pramod Sawant has neither the charisma nor the political clout that Parrikar, who was also defence minister in Delhi in the first BJP government, enjoyed.

As for the Congress, in Goa, as in many other states, it is rudderless and lacks vision. In the 2017 elections it had the largest number of seats but it dithered about finding partners to make up the majority and ended up handing over the government formation to the BJP.

The AITMC intends to leverage this situation by adopting quick tactics. Thirty percent of the population of Goa is made up of Christians (mainly Roman Catholics) and the AITMC has adroitly picked up a leading politician, Luizinho Faleiro, a former Congress leader and ex-chief minister of the state. Faleiro joined the AITMC in September this year. It’s a political win for Mamata Banerjee because Faleiro, besides having political clout in his own state, has been an alliance strategist for the Congress and is credited with forging alliances for his old party in many north-eat Indian states to help the party form governments.

Besides moves such as that, the AITMC has inducted the former tennis champion, Leander Paes, who is now settled in Goa; the socialite Nafisa Ali has also joined the party; and both personalities would likely be visible during the party’s public campaigning in Goa. But Goa also has a sizeable Hindu population (estimated 66%), a base on which the BJP built its support and for AITMC to succeed, it would need to target those voters as well.

To do that, Mamata and her party have been reaching out to smaller parties with a focused following in the state. One of the targets for an alliance is the Goa Forward Party, which has three of the 40 assembly seats and quit its alliance with the ruling BJP, accusing the latter of giving away Goa’s mining resources to the private sector.

Whatever be the outcome of Mamata and her nephew’s electoral strategy in Goa, it has already caused both national parties to be concerned–the Congress more than the BJP. Directionless with a leadership that does not seem to translate into votes, the Congress is particularly concerned that the AITMC is weaning away some of its own leaders at a time when that commodity, political leadership, is a scarcity in the Congress. But one thing is clear. Thanks to Mamata’s moves, the fight for Goa will be watched intently.