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.
The development comes amid a close aide of Pawar saying 36 out of 53 NCP MLAs have extended support to the new deputy CM and the numbers could go to 46 in a few days time.
The government was formed 10 days after Shinde raised a banner of revolt against the Shiv Sena leadership. Forty out of 55 Sena MLAs sided with Shinde, which resulted in the collapse of the two-and-a-half-year-old Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation comprising the Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
The Election Commission on Friday met the warring factions of the NCP led by Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar over their claims to the party name and poll symbol.
Deshmukh, a member the MPCC's Parliamentary Board, has blamed Patole for the rebellion by party's youth leader Satyajit Tambe, who has filed his nomination as an independent from the Nashik division graduates' constituency for the January 30 biennial elections to the Legislature Council.
All 37 rebel Shiv Sena MLAs who are camping in Guwahati on Thursday sent a letter to Maharashtra Assembly's Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal, stating that Eknath Shinde will remain their group leader in legislature.
High-profile figures Eknath Khadse and Vindo Tawde are missing from it.
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.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi must apologise and take back all his remarks against late Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar before entering Maharashtra, Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said in Nagpur on Friday.
The two-time MLA from Sankhalim in North Goa, Sawant, who was speaker of the state assembly, is a dedicated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker.
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.
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.
Fadnavis recently said the previous MVA government had given a target to then Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey to put me in jail, but the police officer could not succeed as he had done nothing wrong.
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.
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.
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.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
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.
Party insiders say the high command could consider replacing state chief Manikrao Thakre, reports Sanjay Jog.
Government is not able to decide on liquor ban as Eid-e-Milad is falling on the eve of Christmas.
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.
According to an Andhra government statement, Naidu 'reposed confidence' in the PM's leadership.
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.
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.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
'It is a well-thought-out decision. I feel it is difficult for him now to step back.'
The letter was posted by Shinde on his Twitter handle, claiming these were the sentiments of the Sena MLAs.
'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.'
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.
"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.
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.
Moving ahead with the process of forming a government, newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party legislators in Maharashtra will meet here today to elect their leader amid Shiv Sena's expression of desire for a coalition government of the two saffron parties.
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.
Their flight landed at the Mumbai airport around 8 pm nearly 50 minutes after it took off from Dabolim airport in Goa.
The major milk-producing districts of Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Ahmednagar and Nashik supply bulk of the stock to Mumbai and Pune.
In a faux pas on the part of the state administration, a banner at the site of the Republic Day celebration in Mumbai erroneously said '65th Republic Day' instead of '66th Republic Day'.
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.
