Maharashtra Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat on Tuesday resigned as the state legislature party head, a day after his letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge over apparent friction with state unit chief Nana Patole came out, party sources said.
A two-day monsoon session of the Maharashtra legislature will begin from July 5 amid the coronavirus outbreak, the state government said on Tuesday.
Taking no chances after the Rajya Sabha poll setback, the ruling Mahi Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra has asked all its MLAs to gather in Mumbai ahead of the June 20 election to the state legislative council.
The video shows Sattar giving instructions to police using the microphone from the stage. The clip also shows police mildly lathi-charging some viewers.
A jilted lover struck 18 blows on the head of his girlfriend on a road in Vasai, near Mumbai, on Friday, even as scores of people watched the gory spectacle, the police said.
The Maharashtra legislative assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill which makes Marathi a compulsory subject across all schools in the state. The development came on `Marathi Bhasha Din' (Marathi language day) which is celebrated on February 27, the birth anniversary of poet and Jnanpith award winner late V V Shirwadkar. The state legislative council had passed the legislation, titled `Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Bill, 2020', on Wednesday.
A substantial number of castes and groups are already placed in the reserved category, getting about 52 per cent of reservations altogether. It would be completely inequitable to place the Maratha community in the Other Backward Class (OBC) category, it said.
The MLAs, who are seemingly unhappy with their leadership, arrived in Surat on Monday night and are camping at the Le Meridian Hotel, they said.
Pawar, who joined the Shinde government earlier this month, was allocated the same portfolio once again, raising questions as to how the Sena MLAs react.
'The numbers may favour us now, but we are in no hurry to form the next government in Maharashtra.'
BJP hints at implementing Modi's model of minimum government maximum governance in Maharashtra
The Maharashtra cabinet has approved the mandatory use of FASTag for toll collection across the state from April 1. This move is expected to streamline administrative processes, enhance transparency, and reduce congestion at toll plazas. The cabinet also approved revisions to the Rules of Business, streamlining administrative functioning and making it more efficient. The revisions include provisions related to matters to be presented before the cabinet, cases requiring approval from the Chief Minister or Governor, and procedures for meetings of the cabinet and council of ministers.
Targeting Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party minister Nitesh Rane said as per the Supreme Court's past decisions, if a person is facing allegations of rape, he must be arrested.
Amid the ongoing tussle between Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole and party veteran Balasaheb Thorat in the wake of recent legislative council elections, both the leaders came face to face at the party's state executive committee meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday, with both of them later claiming that everything was fine between them.
The bill was passed without discussion as the Opposition had staged a walkout over the alleged scam in the Teachers' Eligibility Test.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the election of Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan for the state Legislative Council which he won unopposed as the opposition parties did not field any candidates against him. A bench of justices R M Lodha and H L Gokhale dismissed the plea of Shiv Sena Member of Legislative Council Anil Dattatray Parab who had challenged the Election Commission's decision to hold the election.
Was it Uddhav's back-seat driving of Shinde's ministry Did Shinde feel slighted by Aaditya Thackeray's rapid ascent in the Shiv Sena? Was his spat with Sanjay Raut on Monday the last straw?
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.
Apart from Thackeray, Council Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena), four candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party -- Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad; Nationalist Congress Party's Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari and Congress's Rajesh Rathod were in the fray for the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar was given the finance and planning portfolio on Friday, nearly two weeks after he broke away from the original party and took oath as Maharashtra's deputy chief minister.
The Maharashtra government is ready to hold talks with those involved in Naxal activities as well as their sympathisers, Home Minister R R Patil said on Thursday.
While guests who had arrived earlier are leaving one by one, sources revealed that the hotel, situated on Dumas Road of the diamond city, has stopped accepting new bookings for an indefinite period.
Tension was brewing in Moti Karanja area for the last few days as the municipal corporation was carrying out a drive against illegal water connections.
Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Wednesday said Chief Minister Eknath Shinde should be willing to make 'sacrifices', in terms of seat-sharing for the assembly polls, like the BJP has done to keep the alliance intact.
A first information report (FIR) was registered in Mumbai on Friday against Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray MP Arvind Sawant for referring to Shaina N C, an assembly elections candidate of the rival Shiv Sena, as 'imported maal'.
"Sharad Pawar's presence has extraordinary importance when a new battle for freedom is going on in the country to save the Constitution and democracy, and in such a situation, Pawar should not step aside," he said.
The saffron allies are locked in an intense negotiation on seat-sharing and a consensus has eluded them till now on how many constituencies each of them will contest.
Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah on Thursday described the upcoming assembly elections as the second leg of the party's "Congress free India movement."
Maharashtra Navirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Thursday condemned the attack on Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and said the Prime Minister and not Pawar should be blamed for price rise.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) has shifted its focus back to Hindutva after suffering significant losses in the recent Maharashtra assembly elections. The party has been vocal about attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh and has taken a stance to "protect" a Hanuman Temple in Mumbai. Observers say this move is an attempt to regain its core voter base and counter the BJP's narrative on Hindutva, ahead of the upcoming civic polls. Analysts believe the party's "secular" stand may not be effective in the BMC elections and that its return to Hindutva is a sign of frustration from electoral setbacks.
Contestant Sudhakar Adbale, supported by the MVA, won the Nagpur teachers constituency defeating his closest rival Nagorao Ganar, a BJP-backed independent and the sitting MLC from the seat, they said.
A purported video of BJP leader Kirit Somaiya showed him in a compromising position,
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has written a letter to the state legislative council's deputy chairperson seeking that Viplove Bajoria be made the Shiv Sena's chief whip in the Upper House, a move apparently aimed at further cornering the faction led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray.
A vacation bench of Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala was told by advocate Sudhanshu S Choudhuri that the two MLAs have been booked for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and are in jail.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
Election to fill up 55 seats in the Upper House of Parliament was to be held on March 26, but 37 candidates have already been elected without a contest.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
While the Shinde-led Shiv Sena will organise its event at NESCO ground in Goregaon in northwest Mumbai, the Shiv Sena-UBT will hold its event in Shanmukhanand Hall at Sion in central Mumbai.
The federal agency wants to question and record Parab's statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, they said.
Political sources say Modi is 'keen' on getting the NCP (SP) over to the Mahayuti to counter Eknath Shinde's 'demands' and to act as a cushion against his present allies, Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu, 'in case their relationship became untenable'.
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