Failure to get elected by May 28, ie within six months of taking oath as CM, would have resulted into a Constitutional crisis for the Thackeray-led government, which was averted after the Election Commission announced elections to the nine seats in the Council.
The Karnataka cabinet on Thursday decided to promulgate an ordinance to give effect to the contentious law against religious conversions.
The meeting took place days after Pawar said that he would discuss with the chief minister the issues of soaring onion prices and flood relief package from the Centre.
On instructions from the central leadership, Maharashtra BJP leaders have retreated behind a veil of silence, the senior leader said.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
The 1988 batch officer from Mau district in Uttar Pradesh is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had worked with him in Gujarat.
Saying that the constitutional right to vote is not absolute, the Bombay high court on Friday rejected petitions filed by Nationalist Congress Party leaders Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh seeking temporary release from prison for casting ballot in the June 20 Maharashtra Legislative Council election.
'The JD-U is my party and of thousands of leaders and workers.' 'It is certainly not Nitish Kumar's party.'
Apart from Urmila Matondkar, the names of Marathi actor and Shiv Sena leader Aadesh Bandekar, singer Anand Shinde, BJP-turned-NCP leader Eknath Khadse, farmer leader Raju Shetti are also doing rounds.
Two other ministers Swantradev Singh and Mohsin Raza also took oath.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
The BJP promised revival of the legislative council in Tamil Nadu, which was abolished decades ago by its ally, the ruling AIADMK, if their combine was voted to power in the coming assembly elections.
The party's state unit president Jagadanand Singh announced the names of Mohd Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok Kumar Pandey.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is considering fielding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya as its senior leaders meet to finalise candidates for the assembly polls starting from February 10.
Yogi expands UP Cabinet in attempt to balance caste, regional aspirations head of the assembly polls early next year.
The development has come in the backdrop of Yediyurappa openly seeking JD-S support.
The MLAs, who are seemingly unhappy with their leadership, arrived in Surat on Monday night and are camping at the Le Meridian Hotel, they said.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday demanded an apology from Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari over his remarks on Mumbai, and said time has come to decide whether he should be sent back home or to jail.
Adityanath said the BJP government has done whatever the party promised in the run-up to the last assembly polls in 2017.
The EVMs, officials explained, are not designed to register this system of voting.
'Had it not been for his presence of mind, he would have been in Guwahati now.'
The Shiv Sena has decided to move its MLAs to a luxury hotel at Powai in northeast Mumbai ahead of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, a party leader said on Friday, as the ruling coalition spearhead treads a cautious path after being outsmarted by the BJP in the last week's Rajya Sabha polls.
The EVMs are based on a technology where they work as aggregator of votes in direct elections such as the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
The National Judicial Commission Bill, 2022, was introduced after the majority of voice votes were in its favour.
Kumar had shared the dais with the Council Acting Chairman during the oath ceremony of newly elected MLCs on July 1.
Raut said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was distressed over the defeat of Sanjay Pawar.
Maharashtra housing minister and NCP leader Jitendra Awhad was arrested on Thursday and later released on bail in a case of alleged assault on a social media user at his house.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
A vacation bench of Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala was told by advocate Sudhanshu S Choudhuri that the two MLAs have been booked for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and are in jail.
Election to fill up 55 seats in the Upper House of Parliament was to be held on March 26, but 37 candidates have already been elected without a contest.
The veteran leader is also expected to use his good offices in unifying the faction-ridden party in the state, ahead of assembly elections just six months away.
Patil said after he cast his vote in Mumbai on June 20 for the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, he was called to Shinde's bungalow in neighbouring Thane.
The ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress described it as the 'social cabinet', with 70 per cent representation to the BC, SC, ST and minority communities.
BJP Rajya Sabha member Narayan Rane came out openly in support of Eknath Shinde.
Pawar met Modi at the Prime Minister's Office in Parliament along with NCP Lok Sabha member P P Mohammad Faizal, who raised issues related to his constituency Lakshadweep.
Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party vice president and former chief minister BS Yediyurappa's son BY Vijayendra on Monday said he will contest the 2023 state assembly polls if the party's central leadership gives its nod.
The Bombay high court will pronounce on Friday its order on two petitions filed by Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik and former state home minister Anil Deshmukh, both jailed Nationalist Congress Party legislators, seeking permission to cast their votes in the MLC elections scheduled on June 20.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
The contentious anti-conversion bill was cleared by the Karnataka Cabinet on Monday and it is most likely to be tabled in the legislative Assembly on December 21, official sources said.
The Nationalist Congress Party, which is part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, on Friday won Aurangabad and Pune graduates' constituencies of the state Legislative Council.
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