West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday slammed the BJP over Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s expulsion from the Lok Sabha after a debate on the cash-for-query allegations. She said the move was unacceptable and betrayed India’s parliamentary democracy.

Talking to the media, Banerjee said she felt sad to see the attitude of the BJP. She questioned how the BJP can betray parliamentary democracy. She said the BJP did not even allow Mahua to explain her stand in the House. She added full injustice had been done to the expelled MP.

Banerjee said the Trinamool Congress stands in full support of Moitra. She said the BJP could not defeat the Trinamool in elections, so they have resorted to vendetta politics. She said Moitra will return to Parliament with a bigger mandate. Banerjee said the BJP thought it can do whatever it wants as they have a brute majority. She added that a day will come when the BJP will not be in power.

After her expulsion from the Lok Sabha, Moitra told reporters outside Parliament that said will fight it out over the next 30 years inside and outside Parliament, inside the gutter and on the streets. She accused the BJP of hating Muslims and women. She claimed Adani was buying all of India’s ports and airports. She said Adani shareholders are foreign investors and the Home Ministry was giving them clearance to buy India’s infrastructure.

Reacting to her expulsion, Moitra said there was no evidence of any cash, any gifts anywhere. She said she had been expelled for sharing her Lok Sabha portal login. She said there are no rules governing the sharing of logins. She said tomorrow the CBI will be sent to her house and she is going to be harassed for the next six months.

Many Opposition parties have supported Moitra over the way she was expelled without getting a chance to put forth her stand.

Nine newborn babies and a two-year-old child died within 24 hours at Murshidabad Medical College Hospital in West Bengal. The shocking incident has caused public outrage. According to reports, the babies were shifted from the Special New Born Care Unit at Jangipur Sub-Divisional Hospital to Murshidabad Medical College due to lack of proper facilities.

The sudden influx of patients put pressure on the already overloaded medical college. This led to unfortunate deaths of the new-born babies, the hospital management informed the inquiry committee. On the basis of a preliminary inquiry, it was found most of the children were found to be malnourished and their weight was 300-500 gm only. One child had a severe heart problem since birth.

Professor Amit Dan, Principal of Murshidabad Medical College, said the hospital did not have the facilities to carry out the treatment of the newborn. He said they did not have the time to shift the newborn to any other facility to carry out the treatment.

Dan said another problem was that renovation work was going on at the Jangipur Hospital and all the patients there are being sent to Mursidabad Medical College. He said only 129 beds were available for 300 patients. He said they were trying their best but were unable to attend to the children who were malnourished and underweight.

Dan paid his condolences to the bereaved families and acknowledged a need for thorough investigation in the matter. A medical board of renowned doctors is investigating the matter. The state health department has also issued a statement assuring that necessary measures will be taken for the prevention of such tragedies from occurring again. Reports said some 380 newborns had been sent to the hospital in the last 30 days.    

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit 2023 at the Forest Research Institute. The two day summit aims to promote the state of Uttarakhand as a major investment destination. PM Modi also launched the house of Himalayas brand to promote local products and increase the income of self help groups.

Before the Inauguration, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced the success of the summit, surpassing the targeted MoU signings. The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand said the investments exceeded expectations with Rs 44000 crore have already been materialized on the ground. The substantial investments will help in the generation of employment opportunities for the people of Uttarakhand.

Preparations for the summit have been going on for months. The summit is being attended by more than a thousand investors and delegates from all over India and abroad. The target of the summit is to sign MoUs worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore. But the summit has already exceeded that limit to reach around Rs 3 lakh crore in the run up to the event. The summit saw many roadshows being held by Dhami in India’s metro cities as well as London, Birmingham in the UK, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand took to X (formerly Twitter) and said hearty welcome on behalf of 1.25 crore people of the state on the arrival of world’s most popular leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has a special attachment to Devbhoomi, a rapidly emerging state with the coordination of Ecology, Economy and Technology.

Earlier CM Dhami met the representatives of investor delegates who had arrived for the Uttarakhand Global Investors Summit 2023 on Thursday. Welcoming the representatives of the industry, the chief minister said this time the theme of the investor’s summit has been kept by the government of Uttarakhand as Peace to Prosperity.