The Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP, will decide whether only the chief minister and deputy CMs will take the oath of office on December 5, or whether ministers will also be sworn in. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for the evening at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending. While BJP sources have indicated that Devendra Fadnavis is the frontrunner for the chief minister's post, the BJP legislature party leader is yet to be appointed. NCP chief Ajit Pawar has stated that the chief minister will be from the BJP, with deputy CMs from the Shiv Sena and NCP. The Mahayuti alliance secured a landslide victory in the assembly elections, winning 230 seats out of 288. The government formation has been delayed due to disagreements on the chief minister's position.
'If one looks at it closely, this reflects the BJP's frustration and its fear of defeat'
As suspense over who will become the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra continues, Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal on Sunday backed his party's chief, Ajit Pawar, for the top post.
Four of seven Bharatiya Janata Party MPs who fought the Rajasthan assembly elections won their respective seats while three others lost the polls.
With Bidhuri expressing regret, sources said, the committee was likely to bring closure to the matter and send its report to the speaker.
Reacting to MLA Rameshwar Sharma's statement, Singh said, "I don't want to talk anything new about it. They don't have any issue other than this. The statement is being examined by my lawyers and they will take action accordingly."
The assembly polls were fought under Eknath Shinde's leadership and it is now up to the Bharatiya Janata Party's central leadership to decide on how to maintain his stature, the caretaker Maharashtra chief minister's aide and former state minister Deepak Kesarkar said on Monday.
'Karyakartas felt we should have fought independently'
Following the exit poll prediction of a resounding BJP victory, BSE benchmark Sensex shot up on Monday by 2,507 points or 3.4 percent to settle at a new closing peak of 76,469. However, a day later on Tuesday, the equity markets witnessed a bloodbath, with the Sensex tanking 4,390 points or 6 percent to settle at 72,079. This was the worst single-day fall in four years.
Maharashtra's caretaker Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who took ill at his native village in Satara district, is recovering and will return to Mumbai on Sunday evening, an associate said.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday hailed the party's performance in the Karnataka assembly polls as the victory of politics that unites the country.
...'hum decide karenge kaun banega mukhyamantri. This decision is not to be taken in Mumbai.'
Against predictions by most exit polls that the ruling Congress had an edge in the state, the BJP banked heavily on the charisma of the PM.
Residents of a village in Maharashtra's Solapur district on Monday said they have planned a 'repoll' using ballots as the results of the recently-concluded assembly polls were 'doubtful' due to the presence of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
"It is just that Fadnavis and I have swapped our chairs. Only Ajit Pawar's chair is fixed," said Shinde, who was the CM before the assembly elections with Fadnavis and Pawar as his deputies then.
The ruling Mahayuti alliance bagged 53 of the 70 assembly seats in the region.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
Shinde told us he wanted to build the organisation but honoured our request
It was a mixed bag for 11 seats with more than 35 percent Muslim voters, where six candidates of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi emerged victorious in the Maharashtra assembly polls on Saturday, while four seats went to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance.
'Party workers sit outside polling booths and they know everything that is happening.' 'Besides, as a voter when you push the EVM button to vote there is a paper slip that comes out showing you who you voted for.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party sealed its alliance with the Telugu Desam Party on Saturday for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, with former chief minister of the southern state N Chandrababu Naidu asserting that the combine will sweep the polls.
From dubbing voices to putting faces with the help of AI, political campaigns are undergoing a Bollywood makeover. Among the favourites is a scene from the Anil Kapoor-starrer Nayak, posted by the BJP, where Kapoor asks about the Chunaavi Vaade (poll promise), with Arvind Kejriwal at the receiving end instead of Amrish Puri.
BJP candidate Akash Saxena defeated his Samajwadi Party rival Asim Raja by 33,702 votes.
Reacting to his win, Sharma expressed his gratitude to the people of Amethi and the Congress party, saying the 18th Lok Sabha election in Amethi will be the biggest example of a strong and empowered democratic country.
