Erroneous payments were made to 77,980 women and 12,431 men, many of whom did not qualify for the scheme's benefits.
'I wonder if they will keep it up after the elections.' 'I fear they'll start questioning eligibility -- income, age, bank accounts -- and eventually stop the scheme altogether.'
'We are happy that the money has come to us immediately after it was announced.' 'For once, the government did what it promised.'
Ajit Pawar granted Rediff an interview in Baramati at 6 am. Why? 'To be a successful politician one needs to sleep less, and I never sleep for more than 4 hours' Ajit Pawar told Syed Firdaus Ashraf as Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff captured the encounter on his camera.
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
'We have given riot-free Maharashtra in our 18-month rule.'
'If there is Sabka Saath, then why are you only talking about Hindu-Muslim?'
The Maharashtra municipal elections showed a troubling shift, where votes were traded for cash, convictions no longer mattered, and ideology became an afterthought, observes Ramesh Menon.
'Pro-incumbency worked big time for the ruling party.' 'It has never happened in the past of pro-incumbency working so much for the ruling party.'
'Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' resonated with voters.'
'If someone fiddles us on our religion then we will pay back five times more to that person. We have proved that time and again.'
'Now there is no fight between us (Thackerays); now the fight is with them.'
'These children possess catastrophically low birth weights -- often 1.4 kgs or less. Such extremely low birth weight results in profoundly compromised neo-natal immunity.' 'The escalation to 97 deaths in three months precipitated contemporary attention precisely because this magnitude concentrates the humanitarian emergency, rendering it impossible for the administrative machinery to ignore.'
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to scuttle the possibility of his party's alliance with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray ahead of civic polls.
In doing so, it further cemented the community's determination to support the opposition. But at the same time, it consolidated its Hindu vote bank like never before.
'Money power was deployed like an army in a war.' 'None of the MVA parties had that kind of money.'
The toll waiver will be in force from midnight on Monday, he said.
'BJP's last resort to win the election is to divide people into caste, religion, creed. but it doesn't happen in Maharashtra.'
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
This would give BJP the chance to explore Constitutional options for government formation if there is no clear-cut mandate, explains Sheela Bhatt.
'How can the voting percentage be higher than the actual polled votes?'
'Young people say they know all this emphasis on Hindu-Muslim differences is politically motivated.' 'If you stop watching TV and turn off social media, you'll find the situation on the ground different.'
'The reason I am not anxious about the opponent facing me in the front (Ajit Pawar) is because of who is standing behind me like a rock (Sharad Pawar).'
'Ajit Pawar is trying to sideline us; he is trying to be in the BJP's good books at our cost.'
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