The Shiv Sena split into the Uddhav Thackeray and Shinde factions last year, after which the former filed petitions with the Speaker seeking disqualification of several MLAs belonging to the chief minister's camp.
The Supreme Court directed that the voting in the assembly will not be on the basis of secret ballot and the entire proceeding will have to be telecast live.
Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Thursday made his chief ministerial ambitions clear, when he stated during an interview that there was no hard and fast rule in the Congress that only a Member of Legislative Assembly could be elected to the CM's post.Deshmukh added that the party MLAs and the high command should finalise the next CM. Deshmukh was replaced by Ashok Chavan as chief minister last year, in the wake of the terror attack on Mumbai.
If a local court in Mumbai allows former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and minister Nawab Malik to cast their votes in the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections, the two leaders will be brought to the Vidhan Bhavan, the state legislature complex in Mumbai, at a specific time to take part in the voting process, an official said on Wednesday.
Shinde said Patil told him that he did not mean to disrespect the late Sena supremo.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
'The right conferred by Article 32 has been considered as a part of the 'basic structure of the Constitution', and thus cannot be taken away by anybody, not even by amending the Constitution.'
The development assumes significance as Congress' ally Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar group) had named Jitendra Awhad as the new LoP in the assembly following a split in the party due to Ajit Pawar's rebellion last month.
Amid political turmoil in Maharashtra following a revolt by Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde, six members of legislative assembly (MLAs) and a member of legislative council (MLC) from the neighbouring state arrived in Gujarat's Surat city on Thursday and were later flown to Guwahati in Assam, where party rebels are camping, in two chartered flights, sources said.
The bench gave liberty to Sharad Pawar to move the poll panel for allocation of the party symbol and directed the poll panel to allot it in one week of the application.
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.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party won all five seats it contested in the Maharashtra legislative council elections on Monday, Mohit Kamboj, its leader from Mumbai, claimed that three MLAs of the party indulged in "cross-voting".
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Ajit Pawar-led group was the real Nationalist Congress Party when two factions emerged in the party in July 2023, Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar on Thursday held.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Known for its abhorrence of Samajwadi Party Member of Legislative Assembly Abu Azmi, Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is likely to back the Congress candidate in the by-election to the Bhiwandi assembly seat in Maharashtra against the SP leader's son Farhan.
The MLAs of the three ruling parties and the BJP have reached Mumbai ahead of the elections.
The crucial, neck-to-neck contest was necessitated as the Bharatiya Janata Party fielded three candidates while Shiv Sena put up two and Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party one each.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
Ajit Pawar has the support of more than 40 MLAs of the NCP, according to sources citing a letter submitted to Raj Bhavan.
'We were apprising the CM on such issues and he assured us these would stop but in vain'
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
'The message the BJP is sending is that they are in no way responsible for Uddhav's downfall and it was only Shinde who is to be blamed.'
'Our numbers were less (than BJP's) but PM Narendra Modi blessed us. Modi Saheb told me before the swearing-in that he will extend all possible help to me. Amit Shah Saheb said he will stand behind us like a rock,' Shinde said. 'But the biggest kalakar (artist) is this one,' Shinde said, pointing to Fadnavis sitting to his right on the treasury benches.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said he had been suppressed for a long time and the rebellion led by him was a fallout of the unfair treatment meted out to him, an apparent reference to his old association with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
As the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections gathers momentum, Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, the leaders of two prominent regional parties in Maharashtra, are fighting a battle for political survival.
Seventy-seven MLAs were present in the assembly during the voting.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has referred Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey's 'bribe-for-query' complaint against Trinamool Congress member Mahua Moitra to the Ethics Committee of the Lower House.
Observing that the name and photographs of Sharad Pawar cannot be used by the Ajit Pawar faction for political gains, the Supreme Court on Thursday sought a response from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction led by the Maharashtra deputy chief minister on a plea of the veteran Maratha leader alleging misuse of his popularity by the rival camp.
A total of 161.30 acres of land, plant, machinery and building of the Kannad Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Limited (Kannad SSK) located in Kannad village of Aurangabad district has been provisionally attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the ED said in a statement.
All the current political upheavals in Maharashtra are with the 2024 elections in mind and there is a degree of white-knuckle tension in all parties.
The meeting came days after Shinde denied that his Shiv Sena MLAs were uncomfortable with the inclusion of Ajit Pawar and 8 NCP leaders.
President's Rule can be revoked before the six-month period if a situation emerges for formation of a stable government.
Thackeray claimed that the construction of the bridge was completed two weeks ago but it was not opened to the public as Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had no time to inaugurate it.
The resolution which also condemned the border dispute 'created' by Maharashtra and moved by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, was adopted by a voice vote.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Thursday said the fate of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra will be decided on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, and the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition will prove its majority in a trust vote.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Hitting out at the opposition BJP over its 'lust for power' and 'dirty politics', Thakur said that Maharashtra has given a new formula to the country. She also said that the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was stable.
Hazare in a statement accused Kejriwal of betraying the trust of crores of countrymen and rued that political ambitions destroyed the 2011 anti-corruption movement.
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