Within 10 days of being elected to the state assembly, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has already begun to make its presence felt even before entering the House.
Shinde said his new deputy Ajit Pawar has chosen the path of development and expressed his faith in the leadership of Modi.
Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha MP Nitin Gadkari, late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan's daughter Poonam, former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil are a few of the 29 new entrants to the 16th Lok Sabha among the 48 MPs from Maharashtra.
The Shiv Sena split last month when more than two-thirds of the party's MLAs withdrew their support from the Maharashtra government led by Uddhav Thackeray, throwing their lot with Shinde.
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.
As the political turmoil in Maharashtra continues to unfold, rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shide spoke to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray about the recent political situation in the state, confirmed MNS leader on Monday.
The Comptroller & Auditor General of India has castigated the Maharashtra government for alleged irregularities in the sale and allotment of land in the past eight years, resulting in loss to the exchequer.
The parties which lost their registration also include Revolutionary Party of India-Khobragade faction, led by Uttam Khobragade and Uttar Pradesh-based Peace Party.
Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal told a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud that Koshyari had sworn in Shinde without even asking him which party he and the other legislators supporting him belonged to.
Soon after being removed as Nationalist Congress Party working president, Praful Patel on Monday evening announced the appointment of Lok Sabha MP Sunil Tatkare as the party's state unit chief , replacing Jayant Patil, and Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar as its legislature wing leader.
The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has come under fire following the Centre's announcement that Tata-Airbus C-295 transport aircraft project would be set up in Gujarat, with the opposition seeking to know why the project that was supposed to come up in Maharashtra went to the neighbouring state.
'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.
The Indian Medical Association rolls back their support but it is not known as yet if the resident doctors too would follow the suit.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Wednesday said he aspired to become the CM of the state and also took a jibe at his 83-year-old uncle asking when will the Maratha strongman retire from active politics, as he appeared to be ahead in the numbers game for control of the Nationalist Congress Party after its vertical split.
Thackeray and BJP legislature party leader Devendra Fadnavis lauded Patole's work as legislator and farmers' leader.
The Shiv Sena has decided to move its MLAs to a luxury hotel at Powai in northeast Mumbai ahead of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, a party leader said on Friday, as the ruling coalition spearhead treads a cautious path after being outsmarted by the BJP in the last week's Rajya Sabha polls.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and senior leader Jairam Ramesh were among the 10 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana, while counting was underway in Maharashtra after an eight-hour delay due to wrangling by rival parties over alleged breach of voting rules.
A SpiceJet aircraft has been hired and the flight is expected to leave Guwahati's Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport for Goa's Dabolim airport at around 3 pm, sources privy to the development told PTI.
Government strategists are trying to ensure that the requisite 16 of the 31 states ratify the Bill by the end of this month
'At the moment the anti-defection law works only in favour of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, the original Shiv Sena.' 'The Eknath Shinde camp is at a disadvantage unless they merge with another political party.' 'Otherwise, they will not be saved (from being disqualified).'
Ajit Pawar was earlier sworn in as deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde government, while eight others, including Walse Patil and Bhujbal, were made ministers, the developments coming after a vertical split in the NCP.
'Who else will solve these issues if not the chief minister?' 'Who else shall we take our complaints to?'
NCP national spokesperson Clyde Crasto also claimed that the party working president Supriya Sule and state unit chief Jayant Patil are contacting all the 53 MLAs and the picture will become clearer by Monday.
"After you failed in all methods, you (BJP) now started threatening to impose the President's Rule. If anybody tries to come to power by threatening to impose President Rule then the people of Maharashtra will not give importance to this threat," he added.
Tribals constitute 7-8 per cent of the state's population, and are a deciding factor in 47 assembly seats and seven Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the Junglemahal districts of Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Jhargram in southern Bengal and Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar in the north.
Under fire from the Opposition for his insensitive remarks on drought and load-shedding, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday tendered an apology in both Houses of the state legislature, which witnessed uproarious scenes and repeated adjournments.
After being outwitted by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the ruling Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is now facing another challenge of getting all its six candidates elected to the state Legislative Council in the June 20 polls, which has once again put the spotlight on Independents and smaller parties.
Its new industrial policy appears to benefit industrial houses
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
The ongoing agitation in Kolhapur against levy of toll found its echo in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on Monday with two Shiv Sena members of legislative assembly from the area being suspended and physically evicted for disrupting the proceedings.
The Bharatiya Janata Party unit in Maharashtra on Thursday suspended eight rebels, including a sitting Member of Legislative Assembly, from the party for six years for contesting against official candidates in the October 13 assembly elections.
Mansukh, around 45 years old, had gone missing on Thursday night. The body was found on the banks of the creek along the Mumbra Reti Bunder road, a senior official of Thane Police said.
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.
Most of the 40 MLAs in the Shinde camp don't have enough legislative experience to conduct business in the House and so the first ministry expansion needed induction of veterans.
'You can wake up a person who is sleeping, but how do you wake up a person who's pretending to sleep.'
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.
'Approaching the SC, getting a favourable decision and overturning the situation (the speaker's order), will be too much to ask for in too short time.'
Mungantiwar expressed confidence that the formation of a new government will take place soon.
Once an auto-rickshaw driver in Thane city adjoining Mumbai, Shinde (58) quickly emerged as a key Sena leader in the Thane-Palghar region after joining politics and is known for aggressive approach towards issues of public interest.
Several sitting MLAs are dropped by the BJP in the latest list.
