Senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal has launched a veiled attack on party president Ajit Pawar, claiming that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was in favor of his induction in the cabinet. Bhujbal expressed his disappointment and humiliation over his exclusion, alleging that he was treated like a "toy" by the party leadership. He also alleged that Ajit Pawar makes decisions for the NCP like Fadnavis does for the BJP and Eknath Shinde does for the Shiv Sena.
Activist Manoj Jarange warns of political consequences if the Maratha community is 'betrayed' on quota promises, asserting that all Marathas will be included in the OBC category. He also addresses concerns from OBC leaders and the ongoing agitation.
If Marathas get blanket Kunbi OBC certificates, there will be no separate identity of the Maratha community in Maharashtra, state minister and senior OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal said on Wednesday amid the quota row.
Bhujbal took a veiled attack at Sharad Pawar for the opposition's boycott of an all-party meeting on the Maratha quota issue.
A 24-year-old man has been arrested from Mahad in Raigad district of Maharashtra for allegedly threatening to kill state ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Dhananjay Munde, both members of the Ajit Pawar camp of Nationalist Congress Party, a Pune police officer said on Tuesday.
Quota activist Manoj Jarange demands the Maharashtra government implement a GR for issuing Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas before September 17, threatening further action if the deadline is missed.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday said the decision to field his wife for Rajya Sabha bypoll was taken by his Nationalist Congress Party's apex body and denied reports that senior colleague Chhagan Bhujbal was upset over the move.
The disclosure by Chhagan Bhujbal that he resigned as a minister last November has put a focus on the Maratha quota tightrope the Eknath Shinde-led government is walking amid restlessness in OBCs, with Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray claiming Bhujbal and the Bharatiya Janata Party are hand in glove.
'When Mr Bhujbal was with the ED officers throughout the day and cooperating with them, what was the need to arrest him?'
Bhujbal, who has strongly opposed the demand to include the Marathas in the other backward classes category for quota benefits, said a new social system is taking shape in Maharashtra which is different from the order envisaged by prominent social reformers.
'Sameer and Chhagan Bhujbal's arrest is directly the impact of the PIL filed by the AAP in the Bombay high court.'
He also appealed to the protesters to park their vehicles only in the designated parking areas, hours after the high court frowned on the conduct of protesters.
'One murder gets national coverage because of political connections.' 'The other two and the brutal torture? Not much outrage.' 'Are Dalit and OBC lives worth less?'
The NCP leader asked how suddenly a number of records showing Marathas as belonging to the Kunbi caste were being found.
A special court in Mumbai on Thursday allowed the discharge applications of Maharashtra minister and senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal and seven others in the Maharashtra Sadan scam case.
Of the 288 seats in the state, BJP had won 105 in 2019 state polls, while the undivided NCP had bagged 54 seats.
Maharashtra cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal has demanded a stay on the Kunbi caste certificates issued to Marathas following their latest agitation for reservation and scrapping of the Justice (retired) Sandeep Shinde committee formed over the quota issue.
Apart from renominating 26 sitting MLAs, including ministers who sided with Ajit Pawar when he joined the ruling camp, the NCP has also fielded sitting legislators Sulbha Khodke (Amravati) and Hiraman Khoskar (Igatpuri) who switched over from the Congress recently.
He also termed the draft notification issued by the state government providing Kunbi certificates to all Marathas as a mere 'eyewash', and said caste is determined by birth and not affidavits.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said senior Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal would have become the chief minister of Maharashtra had he not quit the Sena.
The BJP-led government's decision to grant Kunbi status to individuals from the Maratha community has opened a Pandora's box.
The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday questioned Pankaj Bhujbal, son of senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, in a money laundering case registered against him and others in connection with the construction of the new Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi and an another case.
"Like I have grown old, you have also not got younger. The hair on your bald pate will not come back and your suffocation within NCP won't stop," Thackeray said in an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana.
Activist Manoj Jarange vows to intensify his hunger strike for Maratha reservation under OBC, while the Maharashtra government seeks legal opinion on the issue.
The Special Investigating Team has been waiting to question him in connection with the fake stamps racket.
"This is vendetta politics by BJP. There was no need to arrest him as he was cooperating with the ED," NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said.
'Devendra Fadnavis is stating that Marathas must feel OBCs are not happy with reservations for the Marathas and therefore they are protesting.'
Sameer Bhujbal was arrested after over six hours of questioning under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act at the agency's office in Ballard Tiar here. He will be produced in court on Tuesday, official sources said.
'I am known as a fighter. I will not quit the battlegroundÂ…' he said.
But last weekend when Bhujbal appeared in a Mumbai court to withdraw a 1997 defamation case against the Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray with Uddhav Thackeray keeping him company in front of cameras it ruffled many a feather despite both Bhujbal and NCP playing down the development seen by many as pregnant with possibilities of realignments in the state.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kirit Somaiya on Friday alleged that Public Works Department Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his family had links with Anil Vastavade, an aide of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, who is in Enforcement Directorate's remand in connection with a multi-crore money-laundering case.
The role of some key politicians in Maharashtra in the fake stamp paper scam will come under sharper focus now.
Former Mumbai police chief Mendoca says problem arose when Bhujbal desired postings of officers of 'your choice to particular positions in violation of the existing norms'.
A day after Nationalist Congress Party leader Samir Bhujbal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, the former member of Parliament was on Tuesday sent to the agency's custody until February 8 by a special PMLA court in Mumbai.
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