From an obscure corporator to becoming the youngest Mayor of Nagpur, to the first Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis' climb up the political ladder has been steady.
'Talks are on between Uddhav Thackeray and other party leaders (about whether to go solo) for the BMC polls. Workers want the party to contest the polls solo'
'More than Eknath Shinde's wish, we want him (Shinde) to lead us in the government.'
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
Sharad Pawar and other NCP-SP leaders will take a decision on whom to take back in the fold, said the MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed in Ahmednagar district.
''During the recent visit of the hon'ble prime minister to Mumbai, I have conveyed to him my desire to be discharged of all political responsibilities and to spend the remainder of my life in reading, writing and other activities.'
Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai, a confidant of Uddhav Thackeray, said the party is now looking to implement the 50:50 formula with its ally the BJP.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
Hitting out at the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, he said the ruling party has reached "height of appeasement politics," and alleged that it has in a way made appeasement of minorities its "goal."
Temples across Uttar Pradesh were packed with devotees on Sunday for Ram Navami, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading prayers at the Gorakhnath Temple. Heavy crowds were witnessed at temples in Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi, where security was heightened. In Gorakhpur, Adityanath performed the traditional kanya pujan ritual, while in Varanasi, a 51-foot statue of Lord Ram has become a major attraction. The festival was celebrated with enthusiastic fervor across the state.
'There will be no change of seats for Delhi, Assam and Maharashtra.' 'Andhra, J&K, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, West Bengal and Telangana will lose seats while there will be an increase for MP, UP, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.' 'It is a big mistake if you make it a north-south issue.'
Mahim is a mix of predominantly upper-class Maharashtrians, a sizeable cosmopolitan population and minority voters.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a major setback to Maharashtra's ruling alliance of Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday won three of the six Rajya Sabha seats, while the ruling combine questioned the eight-hour delay in counting of votes.
When some MLAs were voting, members from the opposition benches shouted "ED, ED".
"Took darshan and blessings at Kedarnath temple, this morning. Har Har Mahadev!" Fadnavis tweeted along with multiple photos of his trip.
'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.'
For the first time, a presiding officer was declaring in public what decision he will be taking, the Rajya Sabha member said.
Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
'The Congress-NCP is a declining force while we are a rising force.'
'I fear that Karnataka is going to the polls next year and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has staked claim to Akkalkot and Solapur'
Malik used to criticise the BJP-led Central government and the then opposition leader in Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, when he was a cabinet minister in the erstwhile MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
Pawar tried to discourage party leader and state minister Dharmarao Baba Aatram's daughter Bhagyashri from crossing over to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP-SP.
Pawar, who at 30 became the youngest chief minister of Maharashtra in 1978, will have to do a lot of heavy-lifting in the Maharashtra assembly polls, due by October, after severe setbacks in the Lok Sabha polls, reports Sunil Gatade.
If Shinde does not accept the deputy CM's post, then some other leader from our party will get it. He (Shinde) will take a call on this by evening, said Shirsat, who retained his Aurangabad assembly West seat.
The BJP will contest 25 seats and Shiv Sena 23 of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. The two parties will contest equal number of seats, along with their other allies, in elections for the 288-member state assembly, due this year.
The 10-day-old BJP-led Mahayuti alliance ministry in Maharashtra was expanded on Sunday, with 39 ministers being sworn in, taking its strength to 42. The BJP secured 19 ministerial berths, followed by 11 for the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and 9 for Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party. Governor P C Radhakrishnan administered the oath to the new ministers at the ceremony held in Nagpur. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar were present.
Outgoing Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who returned to Mumbai from New Delhi on Friday morning, is travelling to his native village in Satara district amid continuing suspense over his successor a week after the assembly poll results. Shinde had told reporters in New Delhi on late Thursday night that the next meeting of the Mahayuti alliance on government formation will be held in Mumbai on Friday. However, the caretaker CM, who heads the Shiv Sena, is travelling to his native village Dare in Satara district in western Maharashtra and the meeting is now expected to take place on Sunday, the sources said. The Shiv Sena leader has repeatedly said he would not be an obstacle in the government formation and abide by the decisions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the next chief minister. Different viewpoints are emerging in the Shiv Sena over Shinde's place in the next government to be headed by the BJP, the biggest constituent in the Mahayuti, which posted a thumping win in the just-held assembly polls. Many leaders in the Shiv Sena are asking Shinde to accept deputy CM's post if offered by the BJP. However, another section feels it wouldn't be right for him to accept No. 2 position after serving as CM for more than two-and-a-half years, the sources said. "The government formation process will start after the BJP announces its legislature party leader," they said. During his Delhi trip, Shinde had met Shah and discussed formation of the next government in the state. His deputies in the outgoing state cabinet Devendra Fadnavis (BJP) and Ajit Pawar (NCP) had also met the senior BJP leader. Talking to reporters in the national capital, Shinde called the discussion good and positive. Shinde, Fadnavis and Pawar had also met BJP president J P Nadda.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
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.
The move comes a day after the government called a special session of Parliament between September 18 and 22, the agenda for which is under wraps.
Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday said the Maharashtra party leadership has been asked to ensure all rebels withdraw nominations and asserted there will be no friendly fights among the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies in the state assembly polls.
On his part, BJP Lok Sabha MP Narayan Rane, himself no stranger to controversies, got into damage control mode and sought to calm frayed nerves, saying he has chided his son over the remarks.
'The lack of opportunities here remains the biggest worry.' 'We have seen investment summits, but if you look around, much of it is only on paper and not on the ground.'
Five months after a couple of Pawars jousted in an electoral battle in Baramati, two other Pawars will take on each other at the hustings on November 20, 2024.
It also includes Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari and MP home minister Narottam Mishra.
As leaders in both the BJP and Congress concede, neither has within their parties a leader to match Arvind Kejriwal's charisma in Delhi.
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