Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party's alliance with the Shiv Sena is firmly in place, senior party leader Gopinath Munde on Saturday said that the saffron combine cannot accommodate a third partner. Addressing a press conference after inducting former Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Nana Patole into the party fold, Munde who has been made in-charge of the BJP for the upcoming assembly elections, said there will be no change in the seat sharing formula.
Just when we were wondering what our Dream Girl is up to, Hema Malini decided to surprise us yet again. The actress who played Amitabh Bachchan's wife in Baghban is taking on another wifey role in Gul Bahar SIngh's Ek Thi Rani Aisi Bhi. The BJP MP will play Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindhia while Vinod Khanna will play her husband, Jivajirao.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani was not amused with some of the party MPs joining RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and SP chief Mulayam Singh to hold a mock Parliament session and reprimanded his colleague Gopinath Munde for participating in it.
The BJP on Friday said its alliance with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra has been finalised with both parties having reached an understanding in the seat-sharing arrangements.
Taking potshots at senior Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, the Shiv Sena on Monday said it will be Narendra Modi who will have the final word on the issue of chief ministerial candidate in the assembly polls.
Hardening its stand against the Shiv Sena leadership, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that negotiations on seat-sharing for the coming Lok Sabha elections could not begin unless statements made by a Sena leader that his party would back Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar for the prime ministerial post are publicly retracted by senior Sena leaders.
"If it is a defeat, it has to be accepted by everybody," Shiv Sena leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi said when asked if the party conceded defeat in the elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has convened a meeting of the party's core committee to discuss the resignation of senior Maharashtra leader Gopinath Munde. Senior leaders including L K Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley are expected to participate in the meeting.The BJP leadership had called Munde and Maharashtra BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to Delhi. Gadkari had arrived in New Delhi and Munde was expected to arrive late on Monday.
Sixteen Bharatiya Janata Party corporators of Pune civic body have sent their resignations to party president Rajnath Singh to express solidarity with party general secretary Gopinath Munde, who resigned from all organisational posts. The corporators, who met late on Sunday night to discuss Munde's resignation, said their loyalties would remain with the BJP leader and they would follow the "path" shown by him in future.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde was detained on Monday night for the second time in a day, at the hill station of Lonavala, when he was proceeding to violence-hit Sangli-Miraj, party leaders said. Earlier in the day, the former state home minister was not allowed by authorities to board a flight to Sangli in western Maharashtra. He then proceeded to Sangli by road, but was stopped by the police at Lonavala, approximately 65 km from Pune.
The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Tuesday it will not vote on the Women's Reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha without a discussion on it.
The Maharashtra unit of Aam Aadmi Party on Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission against Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar for asking his party workers to "vote twice" in polls and sought derecognition of his party.
Poonam Mahajan, daughter of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, may contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, said senior party leader Gopinath Munde who also ruled out the entry of Rahul Mahajan, who is currently busy in a reality show after being in the limelight for all wrong reasons, into politics.
Notwithstanding L K Advani's resignation, BJP President Rajnath Singh made it clear that there will be no going back on the decision to appoint Narendra Modi as campaign committee chief.
Deputy leader of the opposition in Parliament Gopinath Munde told rediff.com he would seek the help of Right to Information Act to find out who was responsible for according the Padma Bhushan Award to non resident Indian hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal.
Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentary party chairman LK Advani has appointed senior Maharashtra leader Gopinath Munde as the deputy leader in the Lok Sabha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is still confident that the Shiv Sena will never divorce it in Maharashtra and both the Sena and the BJP will contest all the polls together. This was an indication given by the BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde while speaking to media persons at Thane on Sunday on the ongoing changed equations between the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party.
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Thursday hailed Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde for raising the banner of revolt and making his party restore democracy in its functioning. After the episode, Munde has emerged as a very strong leader in the state and there were none to match him, Thackeray said in an editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna. There were attempts to finish off Munde politically but he rebelled and succeeded to make the party heed to his demand.
Instead, senior Maharashtra leaders Eknath Khadse and Pandurang Phundkar will be representing him before the party high command in New Delhi. The BJP cancelled its daily briefing in Parliament on Monday. According to sources, the party expected media persons to raise questions about Munde's resignation.
Gopinath Munde on Sunday resigned from all organizational posts, resenting lack of democracy in the party.Munde is apparently miffed at the appointment of Member of Legislative Council Madhu Chavan, considered close to state BJP president Nitin Gadkari, as the head of the party's Mumbai unit. Ties between Munde and Gadkari have remained strained for quite some time.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday hinted at "welcoming" former external affairs minister Natwar Singh into its fold after he quit the Congress.
"I am not leaving the party. Defection is not in my blood," Pankaja told reporters.
Munde's defiant attitude not to visit Delhi on Tuesday had given rise to the speculation that he may join hands with the Shiv Sena as he had met Bal Thackeray before leaving for Delhi. He also met another powerful leader Chhagan Bhujbal. "I am confident that we should be able to sort out the issue by the end of the day," Venkaiah Naidu told newsmen before leaving for Advani's residence.
It has said that the Sena has entered into a deal with the Congress over support to UPA-Left Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil.
The BJP had filed the notice last week.
Though it did strike him to give the statement earlier, he could not as Mahajan was critical and his sister-in-law Rekha was not keeping well.
With NCP president Sharad Pawar's meeting with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray triggering speculation about a possible realignment of forces in Maharashtra, the BJP has that said the event will not disturb its existing alliance with the Sena nor would the tie-up expand to include a third party.
In the first post-assembly poll shakeup, the BJP has replaced Munde with Nitin Gadkari as the state party chief.
The BJP is ready for a snap poll anytime and is sure the UPA will not remain in office till 2009 in view of widening differences with the Left parties on the Indo-US nuclear.
She parried a question on why she had been inducted in the BJP ahead of Rahul, saying, "My entry into politics was not accidental."
The party announced names of 83 candidates for the October 13 assembly election in Maharashtra.
"It is now my ambition to move to Delhi as a member of Parliament. This I will do with the blessings of people," Munde said while addressing a rally at Shri Kshetra Bhagwangarh, at the border of Beed and Ahmednagar district, on Friday. Speaking for the first time in a public meeting after his stand-off with the party central leadership on the issue of appointment of key functionaries of the Maharashtra unit, Munde said, "Nothing new can happen without me in Mumbai, Delhi."
Gopinath Munde's decision to resign from his post at the Bharatiya Janata Party and to be just an ordinary party worker came as a major shock to the party's central leadership. The former Maharashtra deputy chief minister said that the party was removed from the problems of the common man and said he would embark on a yatra to meet the people.
"Some of the top party leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh have spoken to Munde on phone and asked him not to precipitate matters and come to Delhi to talk about his problems," a senior BJP leader told rediff.com on Monday morning. According to sources, others who spoke to Munde include Arun Jaitley and BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
Maharashtra BJP chief and former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde asked reporters not to read too much into Thackeray's absence at Tuesday night's Sena-BJP dinner meeting.
Wearing a seat belt could have saved Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde, who died in a road accident, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Wednesday and announced a major campaign to spread awareness on observing safety measures while driving.
He said it was not possible to do so while he was trying to collect blood for the late politician's emergency surgery.
Munde expressed confidence that the BJP, which won 34 seats and fell short of majority by just one seat in the 70-member state assembly with an effective strength of 69 would prove its strength in the House.
Under flak, Munde said the video clip, in which he was purportedly heard making the comments against Pankaja, was edited and fake. He claimed that his remarks were "distorted" to project him as a "villain" by his rivals to win elections.
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