Elections to the nine council seats which fell vacant on April 24 were postponed in view of the coronavirus outbreak, but last week the Election Commission set May 21 as the poll date.
Making the announcement, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said this was the "biggest" loan waiver scheme in the country.
NCP leaders Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Congress leaders and former chief ministers Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj and former speakers Dilip Walse Patil (NCP) and Haribhau Bagade of the Bharatiya Janata Party were among the members to take oath early.
He spent Saturday at his brother's home in Mumbai even as his uncle and NCP chief Sharad Pawar attended a party meeting where most of the NCP MLAs were present.
The Bombay high court will pronounce on Friday its order on two petitions filed by Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik and former state home minister Anil Deshmukh, both jailed Nationalist Congress Party legislators, seeking permission to cast their votes in the MLC elections scheduled on June 20.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which had won two seats in the state Assembly election held last year, is planning to contest the by-poll to the Bandra Assembly seat and election to the Navi Mumbai and Aurangabad municipal corporations on secular and development plank.
The return of a BJP-Sena regime after a love-hate war and gap of 15 years, demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, collapse of Congress-Nationalisy Congress Party alliance and rising cases of farmers' suicides dominated Maharashtra's political landscape in 2014.
Vikhe Patil, who was leader of opposition in the state assembly, resigned from the Congress recently.
The 13-day Devendra Fadnavis Maharashtra government won the Trust vote in the Maharashtra assembly.
Referring to differences between Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Governor B S Koshyari over various issues, the Bombay high court on said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that the two highest constitutional functionaries in the state "did not trust each other".
A special court in Mumbai on Wednesday reserved till Thursday its order on the bail pleas of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and state minister Nawab Malik seeking the one-day relief to cast their votes in the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.
A day after Devendra Fadnavis was anointed chief minister-designate of Maharashtra, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday went into a huddle with top party leaders to discuss the future course of action but there were no signs of the party being in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for now.
The last Sena man to occupy the CM's chair was Narayan Rane in 1999, after Manohar Joshi, who in 1995 became the first Sena CM.
Continuing his tirade against Nartocits Control Bureau's Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Friday said he would expose some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and their alleged connection with the officer in the winter session of the state Legislature to be held in December.
Earlier it said floor test is the only way to settle all issues that have entangled the politics of Maharashtra following a rebellion by Sena leader Eknath Shinde leading to a survival crisis of the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government.
'The BJP leaders will go crazy if they are thrown out of power. They will lose their mental balance'
'It can be said without hesitation that Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi enjoy perfect relations of mother-daughter-son all together in the family.' 'But their worldview is different and their style of functioning is different and their favourites in the party are different people.'
Ajit Pawar, nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, had served as deputy chief minister for two truncated terms when the Congress-NCP was in power before 2014.
Ajit Pawar assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would work hard for people of the state.
Altogether 169 MLAs vote in favour of the motion of confidence, pro tem Speaker Dilip Walse Patil informed the House.
The temporary Maharashtra crisis might be over in a few weeks. But the permanent crisis -- the Sena's relationship with its friends old and new -- remains.
Failure to get elected by May 28, ie within six months of taking oath as CM, would have resulted into a Constitutional crisis for the Thackeray-led government, which was averted after the Election Commission announced elections to the nine seats in the Council.
Portfolios were distributed 2 weeks after the MVA govt was sworn-in. Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde will be home minister while NCP's Jayant Patil will be finance minister.
If their resignations are accepted, they may even go back to Bengaluru, they added.
Now, irrespective of who supports whom, only a floor test in the assembly will decide if this government can continue or not.
'For short-term gain, the BJP makes extraordinary promises, they take extraordinary decisions, but in the long term it is going to impact both them and the country.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is committed to bring Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country but only after following all democratic processes and discussions on it.
Describing Fadnavis as a friend, Thackeray also said he does not view him as opposition leader.
BJP claimed close to 116 lawmakers from rival parties appeared to have voted for Kovind.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
Gandhi, on the other hand, has also reached out directly to the party workers in the three states to know their top choice for the chief minister post through an internal mobile messaging app, party leaders said.
Describing Shiv Sena as a "natural ally", BJP dropped hints that it would prefer the estranged saffron party to be a partner in its government in Maharashtra even while Nationalist Congress Party's unconditional support continues to be on offer.
Speaking about his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the NCP chief told NDTV that he conveyed to the PM that it would not be possible for his party to work with the BJP.
In a statement after the apex court verdict, Thackeray said, "With folded hands, we request the prime minister and the president to take an immediate decision on Maratha quota."
The 36 new ministers included 10 cabinet and four ministers of state (MoS) of the NCP, eight Cabinet and four MoS of the Sena, and eight Cabinet and two MoS of the Congress.
Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Milind Deora on Friday demanded that the judicial commission's report on Adarsh scam should be debated in the Maharashtra legislature.
He said the government would provide meal at Rs 10 to common citizens and build a super-speciality hospital in every district of the state.
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.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, whose party has extended crucial outside support to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra, on Monday said the decision was prompted by the need to avoid fresh elections but made it clear that the party will play the role of an effective opposition.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
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