NCP president Sharad Pawar may be busy getting ready for the INDIA Opposition bloc meeting in Mumbai with other Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) constituents, but his close friend and industrialist Dr Cyrus Poonawalla has a piece of advice for the octogenarian leader.
Speculation is rife in political circles over the past few days that he is likely to join the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The Shinde-led Shiv Sena has maintained he will continue to be CM despite the NCP joining the state government, which also includes the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'We need a candidate who will do our work and fight with the authorities; someone we can hold accountable.' 'Piyush Goyal is not that candidate.'
The Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of Shiv Sena is keen to contest eight out of the 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region with some 'give and take' in the next elections, sources said on Tuesday.
'It's dull because this time the election is spread over such a long period.'
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Mahesh Tapase on Sunday said the oath taken by nine NCP MLAs as ministers in the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government does not have official support of the party.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
'There is no grain of truth in the speculation that the Congress is thinking of contesting the Lok Sabha elections without taking Sharad Pawar along'
In a setback to the Congress ahead of Lok Sabha elections, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Monday quit the Congress, amid speculation that he is veering towards the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Narwekar had said on Thursday that he won't delay the decision on the disqualification pleas of some Sena MLAs but wouldn't rush into it either as it may result in miscarriage of justice .
Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday began hearing the disqualification petitions filed against each other by two rival Shiv Sena factions led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said his party has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court objecting to a meeting between Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar before the crucial verdict on disqualification petitions against rival Sena MLAs, including the CM.
The development assumes significance as Congress' ally Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar group) had named Jitendra Awhad as the new LoP in the assembly following a split in the party due to Ajit Pawar's rebellion last month.
The cross-examination in connection with the disqualification petitions filed by Shiv Sena MLAs will start from November 23, according to a schedule issued by Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, a move dubbed a delaying tactic by the Shiv Sena (UBT).
Raut's statement comes a day after Pawar, during an interview with a media house in Pune, responded to a query on his chief ministerial ambitions by saying "yes, I would 100 per cent like to be (CM)".
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said that former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey had been given a "target" to arrest him but the police officer could not succeed as he had done nothing wrong.
The drug network was busted based on an intelligence input received by the Crime Branch, he said, adding that three persons were arrested and a case has been registered by the DRI.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said his party will not go with the Bharatiya Janata Party though some 'well-wishers' are trying to persuade him.
In its closure report submitted before a special CBI court New Delhi, the agency is understood to have said it did not find enough evidence to prosecute the accused.
Besides launching initiatives for technological, administrative and infrastructural improvement, Chandrachud, like his illustrious father Y V Chandrachud, who was the Chief Justice of India for the longest time from February 22, 1978 to July 11, 1985, kept delivering significant verdicts in the last one year.
'You can wake up a person who is sleeping, but how do you wake up a person who's pretending to sleep.'
Shinde said his new deputy Ajit Pawar has chosen the path of development and expressed his faith in the leadership of Modi.
We left the Congress-NCP govt because we didn't want to be with them, Shiv Sena spokesperson said.
'Rahul Gandhi is showing an 'I-don't-care-attitude'.' 'He is showing the same attitude towards what is happening in Maharashtra or in various parts of the country.'
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has referred Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey's 'bribe-for-query' complaint against Trinamool Congress member Mahua Moitra to the Ethics Committee of the Lower House.
The NCP supremo, who was at the receiving end of his nephew's move during the day, had, 45 years ago, split the Congress and walked out with 40 MLAs, leading to the collapse of the Vasantdada Patil government.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Monday said there was no confusion within the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance over his meeting with nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in Pune.
The constituency is being represented by senior BJP leader and Union minister Raosaheb Danve, who has won this seat five times on the trot.
Meanwhile, Opposition bloc Maha Vikas Aghadi said the verdict will determine if democracy "exists" in the country and judiciary "functions" independently.
The Shiv Sena split into the Uddhav Thackeray and Shinde factions last year, after which the former filed petitions with the Speaker seeking disqualification of several MLAs belonging to the chief minister's camp.
"I am also challenging these 13 turncoat MPs and 40 MLAs to resign and contest elections again and see if they can get elected," he added.
'Neither did I approach the BJP nor did they ask me to join them. It was a natural choice for both of us to make.' 'It was never for me to ask or for them to give.'
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday arrived at Vidhan Bhavan talking to each other and greeting assembled mediapersons together.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday decided that Kunbi caste certificates will be issued to those Marathas hailing from the Marathwada region who possess revenue or education documents from the Nizam era that recognise them as Kunbis, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said.
Thackeray's tour comes a week after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight other NCP MLAs joined the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government.
'ow can Aurangzeb be our leader? Our king is only one and that is Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj'
