Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
Thackeray held talks with Thorat, former chief minister Ashok Chavan and another senior Congress leader, Manikrao Thakare, at a suburban hotel.
Once the two parties finalise the common minimum programme, it would then be shared with the Shiv Sena which is then expected to add issues that are close to its heart, reports Prasanna D Zore.
The Congress has remained ambivalent on the issue of giving tickets to tainted leaders like former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, who shared the dais with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi at an event on Wednesday, and former chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi in the Lok Sabha polls.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
It said the Congress will infuse new blood in leadership roles without creating new fault lines and cementing its ideological moorings.
In a setback to the opposition Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, the party could win only one of the four seats it held during the biennial elections held for six local bodies constituencies in the state legislative council.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his cabinet colleagues Pankaja Munde and Vinod Tawde, Union minister Nitin Gadkari, state minister Sadabhau Khot, former Union Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi were prominent among those who installed Ganpati idols at their homes.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress leaders met party chief Sonia Gandhi amid talks in state political circle about possibility of the Shiv Sena forming government in Maharashtra backed by opposition parties.
Ahead of the crucial third round of discussions, the opposition INDIA bloc on Wednesday exuded confidence that it would provide a formidable alternative to bring political change in the country and asserted that it has several prime ministerial faces against BJP's only one.
Nationalist Congress Party on Thursday said it would support Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan if he was planning to reconsider his decision to reject the report of the commission which probed Adarsh Society scam.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday agreed to be questioned on Times Now's Frankly Speaking host Arnab Goswami on his first-ever formal television interview.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge were among those present during the show of strength aimed at making a public statement that the three parties hold the real mandate to govern the state.
In its third list of candidates for the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Congress on Tuesday fielded 58 candidates, mostly tried and tested ones. While most sitting ministers, including Kapil Sibal (Chandni Chowk), Krishna Tirath (Northwest Delhi), Sachin Pilot (Ajmer) and Srikant Jena (Balasore) were retained, the surprise elements were state Youth Congress President Vishwajeet Kadam replacing tainted Suresh Kalmadi from Pune and cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan).
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and various other state ministers sat on a dharna in Mumbai on Thursday to protest against the arrest of their cabinet colleague Nawab Malik by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has denied allegations it was trying to wean away MLAs from other parties.
'Tributes to India's former Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi Ji on her birth anniversary,' Modi tweeted.
The two parties have agreed to contest 26 and 22 seats respectively.
'The Maharashtra government is not being very clear; they are keeping quiet.'
The result was so disastrous for the Congress and NCP that they lost 41 seats out of 48 to the BJP-Shiv Sena combine.
The Congress leader later tweeted an apology.
Maharashtra unit president of the BJP, Chandrakant Patil, on Wednesday said he has assured the party workers that the party will return to power in the state once the results of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are announced on March 10.
Maharashtra unit president of the BJP, Chandrakant Patil, on Wednesday said he has assured the party workers that the party will return to power in the state once the results of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are announced on March 10.
Altogether 169 MLAs vote in favour of the motion of confidence, pro tem Speaker Dilip Walse Patil informed the House.
'They are trying to lure our MLAs and that is why we are taking precautions.'
The state has total 8,98,39,600 voters, including 1,06,76,013 in the age group of 18 to 25 years. A total of 6.5 lakh polling personnel have been deployed at 96,661 polling booths across the state.
'When the chief minister saw how Manoj Jarange Patil had successfully held the state government hostage to his whims, Eknath Shinde knew he had a very clear chance of enamouring himself to these Maratha agitators by accepting Patil's demands.'
The assembly election results are likely to put a lid on the impending battle the old guard and young Turks, strengthen the hands of the veterans, and force the younger leaders to negotiate a truce. Archis Mohan reports.
'Who else will solve these issues if not the chief minister?' 'Who else shall we take our complaints to?'
BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday attacked Congress for its decision to give tickets to "tainted" leaders, saying "Adarsh candidates" including Ashok Chavan and Pawan Kumar Bansal have been "rewarded".
After a revolt in the Shiv Sena, party president Uddhav Thackeray was ready to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra if the dissidents dumped rebel leader Eknath Shinde, a proposal that was unacceptable to rebel MLAs and the national saffron outfit, legislator Deepak Kesarkar claimed on Friday.
Rubbishing allegations of corruption in the allotment of flats in the Adarsh housing society, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Monday the charge was baseless.
'The intention is to let the governor know that we have the majority and the letters of support is the proof.'
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
The piece also sought to know why Fadnavis did not once come forward to defend his colleague.
Sixty-eight Rajya Sabha members, including nine Union ministers, are completing their tenure this year, triggering a race of sorts among leaders across political parties to eye a six-year term in the Upper House of Parliament.
Rane accused the Congress of reneging on its promise of making him the CM after he joined the party 12 years ago.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
In Aurangabad, Shiv Sena bagged 29 seats, BJP 22 while the MIM, who made its debut, bagged 25 seats.
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