Noted industrialist Rahul Bajaj's candidature for the June 15 Rajya Sabha byelection has led to fissure in the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition with Congress on Monday announcing fielding Avinash Pandey.
Tharoor also said he is honoured by the invitation of the government to lead an all-party delegation to five key capitals to present the nation's point of view on recent events.
The Congress followed next with Rs 620 crore or 18.5 percent of the total expenses among the 32 national and regional parties whose records were analysed, the ADR said.
The nearly 13-minute speech, with a booming voice resembling that of Bal Thackeray, began with his trademark opening line Jamlelya majhya tamam Hindu bandhavanu, baghinino ani matano (greetings to my Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers who have gathered here).
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 opposition party, however, said the four eminent Congress MPs and leaders who have been included at the instance of the Modi government will, of course, go with the delegations and make their contributions.
'Can the Congress leadership summon up the will to effect change?'
Polling for the 288 seats of the Maharashtra assembly will take place on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
The constituency is being represented by senior BJP leader and Union minister Raosaheb Danve, who has won this seat five times on the trot.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut on Wednesday claimed that Uddhav Thackeray planned to make Eknath Shinde the chief minister of Maharashtra after the 2019 polls, but first the Bharatiya Janata Party and later Maha Vikas Aghadi allies including Sharad Pawar played a spoilsport.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday failed to retain Kasba Peth assembly seat, its stronghold in Maharashtra's Pune district, as Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar defeated the saffron party nominee Hemant Rasane in the bypoll.
A meeting of the newly elected Congress Members of Legislative Assembly in Maharashtra on Saturday authorised party president Sonia Gandhi to nominate their new leader, who will be the next chief minister. A one-line resolution, authorising Sonia Gandhi to name the new leader, was passed at the first meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, convened in Mumbai to elect the leader, two days after the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine stormed back to power.
Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections, veteran leader Sharad Pawar led faction moved the Supreme Court on Friday seeking that both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) be given new poll symbols.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has criticised the Maharashtra government's recent decision to grant taxi permits to only those drivers who are well versed in Marathi and have resided in the state for at least 15 years. Most taxi drivers in Mumbai are migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.Lalu alleged that the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine was 'going the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's way".
Nationalist Congress Party-SP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday turned 84 and celebrated his birthday with members of his family and well-wishers, including estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
The Congress in Maharashtra has a plan in place in the event of alliance with anti-Bharatiya Janata Party outfits doesn't materialise, state unit party president Nana Patole said on Wednesday amid buzz about the future of tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
The Mahayuti landslide in Maharashtra will leave the state assembly without a leader of opposition as no party outside the ruling alliance has been able to get the mandatory minimum 29 seats.
The delegations led by Baijayant Panda, Ravi Shankar Prasad (both Bharatiya Janata Party), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Janata Dal-United), Shrikant Shinde (Shiv Sena), Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Kanimozhi (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party-Sharad Pawar) will visit a total of 32 countries and the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Like his father Karunanidhi and AIADMK rivals MGR and Jayalalithaa, Stalin would like to confine his real political work to Tamil Nadu, and not want to take after the late Congress leader K Kamaraj and take up a national role, even if to create greater political space for son Udhayanidhi, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The minister neither provided any age-wise break-up nor specified the causes behind the death of the children.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear petitions challenging the Election Commission's decision to revise electoral rolls in Bihar. The hearing is scheduled for July 10.
Such meetings are routine, the former state home minister added.
On the 83rd anniversary of the Quit India movement, Utkarsh Mishra recalls the conditions under which the Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi, launched the final struggle for independence.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that he, his deputies Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde, will work in shifts to ensure round-the-clock governance. Fadnavis will work from 12 noon to midnight, Ajit Pawar, known for his early rising habits, will be on duty in the morning, and Shinde, known for his late-night work ethic, will handle the night shift. This arrangement comes after Ajit Pawar's controversial return to the BJP-led government following a split from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The NCP, under Sharad Pawar's leadership, is now a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance with the Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT). The recent assembly elections saw the Mahayuti alliance, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar's NCP faction, securing a comfortable majority.
Manoj Jarange's protest for Maratha quota at Mumbai's Azad Maidan enters its third day. Jarange is demanding 10% quota for Marathas and recognition as Kunbis. Maharashtra ministers suggest the community avail the existing EWS quota.
Ending the decade long Congress-Nationalist Congress party 'misrule' is more important than pursuing personal ambitions like becoming the chief minister, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray has said. Thackeray, 49, was responding to a question on whether he was the Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party's choice for chief minister if the saffron combine comes back to power.He said the saffron alliance will review several 'anti-people' decisions of the Congress-NCP coalition.
Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal expressed disappointment at not being included in the new Mahayuti government in Maharashtra. He stated he would decide his future course after consulting with his constituency. Bhujbal was one of several prominent leaders excluded from the new cabinet, which was expanded on Sunday. The exclusion sparked reactions from other political figures, including former minister Deepak Kesarkar and Congress leader Bhai Jagtap.
The Congress on Sunday said it was not stopping anyone from being part of diplomatic delegations to be sent to various countries following Operation Sindoor and that its leaders who have been named at the instance of the government must listen to their conscience and contribute to the exercise.
The party said no Congress worker would even entertain the remotest thought of insulting the Pope, whom Christians around the world consider as God-like.
It also asked why the data shared pertained to a period from April 2019 even though the scheme for anonymous political funding was introduced in 2017.
Anwar announced he was quitting the NCP and was also giving up his Lok Sabha membership on September 28 after Sharad Pawar's "defence" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale fighter jet deal.
Arvind Kejriwal's AAP likely to impact congress the most and other parties to a lesser extent in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts the Snap poll conducted by ABP News-Nielsen in Delhi and Mumbai.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Ajit Pawar said on Friday that the Mahayuti allies are still in talks over 11 of the 288 assembly seats for the November 20 elections in the state.
On his 200th birth anniversary, Utkarsh Mishra traces the life, thought, and legacy of Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India.
Former Maharashtra MLA and NCP leader Zeeshan Siddique has received a death threat via email, demanding Rs 10 crore and threatening to "kill him the same way" as his father, Baba Siddique, who was shot dead last year. The sender claimed to be a member of the D-company and warned Zeeshan not to contact police. Police have launched a probe into the death threat and extortion demand.
Patole, the MLA from Sakoli in Bhandara district, had resigned as speaker of Maharashtra assembly on Thursday.
Amid intense discussions among Mahayuti allies over the distribution of portfolios and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena's insistence on the home ministry, the clarity on the composition of the council of ministers is expected by Sunday, sources said.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections saw a fierce contest between two coalitions and six major players. Despite securing over one lakh votes, 58 candidates lost the election. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Sharad Pawar suffered the most, with 22 candidates losing despite receiving over one lakh votes. Other prominent losing candidates included former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and senior Congress leaders Balasaheb Thorat and Dhiraj Deshmukh. The Mahayuti coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP, and Ajit Pawar-led NCP, retained power by winning 230 out of 288 assembly seats.
The diplomatic exercise aimed at presenting India's stance against Pakistan on terror comes in the wake of Operation Sindoor -- the Indian offensive against terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed.
Mumbai police are investigating threat mails received at two police stations, threatening to blow up the car of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The IP address of the sender is being tracked and all angles are being probed.
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