In a jolt to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party won four of the six seats in the state legislative council, including Nagpur, and wrested the Akola-Buldhana-Washim seat from the Shiv Sena.
Around 15 MLAs, who were lodged in a hotel in Gujarat's Surat, are being taken to Assam in a special flight.
Bharatiya Janata Party-backed independent candidate Sadabhau Khot and Nationalist Congress Party's Shivajrao Gajre on Monday withdrew their nominations for the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, leaving 11 contestants in the fray for 10 seats as the state was set to witness another bitter fight between the BJP and the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) after the last week's cliffhanger in the Rajya Sabha polls.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and various other state ministers sat on a dharna in Mumbai on Thursday to protest against the arrest of their cabinet colleague Nawab Malik by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.
Thackeray said he is 100 per cent confident that Latke will get the votes of the Maha Vikas Aghadi constituents.
The claim evoked a sharp reaction from Fadnavis, current deputy chief minister in the Mahayuti government of BJP, Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party led by Ajit Pawar, who said Thackeray has "lost his mind".
In his address over Facebook on June 22, Thackeray had talked about his willingness to step down if the rebel MLAs come to Mumbai and make such a demand.
'We have raised our complaints with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, that it was getting difficult to work with the NCP and Congress ministers'
Rumblings in the Maha Vikas Aghadi camp came to the fore on Wednesday with Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole accusing ally Nationalist Congress Party of being a "backstabber", a day after the Sharad Pawar-led party joined hands with rival Bharatiya Janata Party in Gondia zilla parishad elections to keep the Congress from power.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Monday said there was no confusion within the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance over his meeting with nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in Pune.
He said the first decision of the cabinet was to approve Rs 20 crore fund for conserving Raigad Fort, which was the capital of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
The chief minister's reply came on a query on Sharad Pawar's statement a day before wherein he said there was no split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar is its leader. Pawar later denied making such a statement.
'If they don't make Ajit Pawar chief minister, what can he do?'
NCP president Sharad Pawar said Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will decide the fate of Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who is facing corruption allegations by former Mumbai police chief Param Bir Singh.
Maharashtra unit president of the BJP, Chandrakant Patil, on Wednesday said he has assured the party workers that the party will return to power in the state once the results of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are announced on March 10.
Maharashtra unit president of the BJP, Chandrakant Patil, on Wednesday said he has assured the party workers that the party will return to power in the state once the results of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are announced on March 10.
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 ED case against Deshmukh and others is borne out after the CBI first carried out a preliminary enquiry followed by a regular case being filed on the orders of the Bombay High Court.
'How long will you hide in Guwahati, you will have to come to chowpatty,' the Sena MP tweeted in Hindi along with a photo of the state Assembly's Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal looking into the distance.
The NCP also asked the Income Tax department and the Enforcement Directorate to find out the source of "black money" involved.
Pawar claimed that since the last few weeks, conscious attempts were being made by the Karnataka CM to take the situation in a different direction.
The seizure included the cutouts put out as the decoration display for the ten-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival which began on Wednesday.
Rahul's remarks came a day after Maharashtra's former chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narayan Rane met state overnor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, demanding the president's rule in the state, saying Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government has failed to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
Rohit Pawar further claimed "four-five" leaders around Ajit Pawar were trying to project the latter as the "villain" and putting all the blame for the party's split on him.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole on Friday said that the party does not share the same stand with Shiv Sena, its alliance partner in Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, over the demand for India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna to Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
The two parties have agreed to contest 26 and 22 seats respectively.
Maratha activist Manoj Jarange on Wednesday suspended his indefinite fast, which he began five days ago over the quota issue, stating that his community members say they want him alive to fight for the cause.
The Opposition on Tuesday termed the Union Budget as a 'kursi bachao budget' driven by political compulsions and claimed that it ignored opposition-ruled states in a bid to 'appease' Bharatiya Janata Party's allies.
Eknath Shinde is appearing to be holding a tight grip on the Shiv Sena, as the strength of MLAs supporting him is expected to cross 50 as more legislators are likely to reach Guwahati on Friday thus further deepening the political crisis in Maharashtra.
Amid the deepening political turmoil in Maharashtra, state Congress president Nana Patole accused Deputy CM and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar of harassing Congress legislators and ministers by stalling their development funds.
As the rebellion by senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde plunged the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra in a political crisis, an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana on Thursday said the renegade legislators should "mend their ways in time".
The alliance leaders are getting together for the third round of the brainstorming session in Mumbai, after Patna and Bengaluru, to chalk out their common campaign strategy to take on the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
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.
Eknath Shinde has said Devendra Fadnavis gave up the opportunity to install a Bharatiya Janata Party mayor in Mumbai after the 2017 civic polls for the sake of the Shiv Sena at his request.
'There is a difference between a politician and leader.' 'A politician will have his pound of flesh first and do everything else later.' 'A leader will sacrifice everything to help people.'
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.
Singh asserted that Deshmukh set a staggering collection target of Rs 100 crore for his officers, specifically from Mumbai, while also discussing plans to target key opposition figures, including former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
When some MLAs were voting, members from the opposition benches shouted "ED, ED".
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