Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), secured a comfortable win in the bypoll to Andheri (East) Assembly seat in Mumbai on Sunday, while votes polled in favour of the None of the Above (NOTA) option obtained the second position.
The state government decided to rename the area at Girgaum Chowpatty where Tilak was cremated, as 'Swaraj Bhoomi'.
Deputy Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly Narhari Zirwal on Friday asked the legislature secretary not to respond to the Supreme Court's notice on a plea filed by 12 Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs challenging their one-year suspension.
It said the Congress will infuse new blood in leadership roles without creating new fault lines and cementing its ideological moorings.
As reports of political parties swiftly switching loyalties -- to quench their thirst for power -- swirl over Maharashtra, Rediff.com speaks to different players involved in the game of thrones.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said he had proposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to make Eknath Shinde, who had rebelled against the Shiv Sena leadership, the new chief minister after the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government last week.
High-profile figures Eknath Khadse and Vindo Tawde are missing from it.
Ending weeks of acrimony between the former saffron allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena will on Friday resume talks on the issue of the latter joining the four-week-old government in Maharashtra.
After years of living with his family in a poky 110 sq. ft. 'house', textile worker Sambhaji Surve dreams of moving into a home four times the size once the Maharashtra government starts its ambitious redevelopment of the 39-acre Kamathipura shanty town in south-central Mumbai. Sharing his dream are about 8,000 other families hoping for a better life when the redevelopment project, part of the government's effort to redevelop old settlements and make life more livable for some residents, gets underway. The Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party aims to redevelop BDD Chawl and Dharavi but for Surve all the matters is Kamathipura where he arrived in the 1970s from Nasik to work in a textile mill. Kamathipura was originally built 150 years ago following construction of a causeway to connect the seven islands of Mumbai. From the British Raj to post-independence, it became infamous for slums and brothels.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
'The BJP used Shinde and Shiv Sena to decimate Uddhav Thackeray, humiliate him by taking away his party as well as party symbol.' 'The Shiv Sena and Eknath Shinde have served their purpose.'
The two-time MLA from Sankhalim in North Goa, Sawant, who was speaker of the state assembly, is a dedicated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Miniser R R Patil said in rape cases, the state government would set up a special court.
The Maharashtra government on Friday said it will make a statement in the Legislative Assembly on July 20 on the controversy surrounding the audio tape conversation purportedly between actor Salman Khan and actress Aishwariya Rai.
'It is a well-thought-out decision. I feel it is difficult for him now to step back.'
Keeping all its options open for government formation in Maharashtra, the Bharartiya Janata Party on Tuesday indicated that it is in no hurry to decide on whose support it would take while making it clear that it will not blink first in the battle of nerves with estranged ally Shiv Sena.
The letter was posted by Shinde on his Twitter handle, claiming these were the sentiments of the Sena MLAs.
The MES and some political outfits in Maharashtra have been pressing for this demand on the ground that the district and a few other neighbouring areas of Karnataka have a substantial Marathi speaking population.
In its exit poll released after the voting on May 10, India Today-Axis My India predicted a clear majority for the Congress with 122-140 seats and gave the BJP 62-80 seats. It gave 20-25 seats to the JD-S.
Amid talk that BJP Maharashtra unit chief Devendra Fadnavis could be party's chief ministerial choice, Nagpur-East MLA Krishna Khopde on Wednesday offered to quit and vacate his seat to pave way for his mentor Nitin Gadkari, after voices grew louder on bringing back the Union Minister to the state to don the mantle.
The 25-year-old saffron alliance in Maharashtra is hurtling towards a break up with the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders walking out of a meeting with their Shiv Sena interlocutors that was called to discuss seat-sharing for Maharashtra assembly polls.
Government is not able to decide on liquor ban as Eid-e-Milad is falling on the eve of Christmas.
The MLAs of the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition in Jharkhand on Tuesday arrived in Raipur by a chartered flight in a bid to thwart the Bharatiya Janata Party's possible attempt to poach them, and moved into a nearby luxurious resort.
Party insiders say the high command could consider replacing state chief Manikrao Thakre, reports Sanjay Jog.
Their flight landed at the Mumbai airport around 8 pm nearly 50 minutes after it took off from Dabolim airport in Goa.
"If Gadkari decides to build the bridge between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, he can approach Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and request him," Sattar said.
Embattled Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday addressed the state online, and made it clear that he had no intention of continuing in office if his own MLAs didn't want him.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, the AAP's Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha alleged that the BJP is offering two options to his party MLAs -- they should either join the saffron party or the CBI-ED will put them in jail.
The Election Commission on Tuesday ordered the delisting of another 86 'non-existent' registered unrecognised political parties, raising the number of such organisations red flagged by the poll panel for failing to comply with electoral rules to 537.
A dozen ministers will take oath at Tuesday's ceremony, scheduled at Raj Bhavan at 11 am.
The Congress will not allow the Maharashtra state assembly to function and will corner the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee said on Sunday.
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.
Ahead of his Dussehra rally, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday tweeted a couplet by famous Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, which said that whosoever is his heir will be his son and not vice versa.
The situation is currently under control, Beed Superintendent of Police Nandkumar Thakur told PTI.
The rebel legislators have been maintaining that they were forced to go against Thackeray as he kept ignoring their plea to snap ties with the MVA allies despite being told that these constituents were trying to 'finish off' the Sena.
Delhi on Monday night appeared headed for Assembly elections with Bharatiya Janata Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Congress expressing themselves against formation of a new government and seeking a fresh mandate to end the eight-month-long political uncertainty.
'...that he was in talks with the SS-UBT and would return if his ministry was snatched away and given to one of the NCP ministers.'
Normalcy returned to the city, recently renamed as 'Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar', even as the government deployed five companies of the State Reserve Police Force as a precaution.
The major milk-producing districts of Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Ahmednagar and Nashik supply bulk of the stock to Mumbai and Pune.
The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a batch of cross-petitions of Uddhav Thackeray and CM Eknath Shinde factions pertaining to the Maharashtra political crisis.
