The Maharashtra Assembly elections are taking place today, with the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance seeking to retain power and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) hoping for a comeback. The campaign saw prominent leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crisscrossing the state to garner votes. The Mahayuti is banking on popular schemes while the MVA focuses on issues like caste-based census and social justice. The elections have also seen a significant rise in the number of candidates and voters.
'Suddenly we had a new comprehension of affairs, which reminded that the luxury of politics floated atop a foundation by economics.' 'Along with this, finance ministers became crucial in molding the perception and reputation of Union Cabinets.' 'Governments couldn't afford a wrong person in that portfolio,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
The Shiv Sena faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has nominated Rajya Sabha MP Milind Deora from Worli for the upcoming assembly elections.
While the MNS had fielded 125 candidates, the VBA had 200 candidates in the fray.
Ajit Pawar's NCP, a constituent of Mahayuti, was winning or leading in 41 of the 59 seats it contested as per the latest figures released by the Election Commission.
The seat-sharing issue is being discussed with the central leadership, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule told PTI.
Uddhav Thackeray, who played the bold gambit of taking on the ally Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 and forged an unlikely alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, was on Saturday left struggling to make sense of his party's rout in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
Rana, who currently represents the Amravati Lok Sabha seat, joined the ruling BJP at the party's state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule's residence in Nagpur along with her supporters late Wednesday night.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Pune in Maharashtra on Thursday was cancelled following heavy rains in the city, sources said.
He further said that he believes Ajit Pawar will play a key role as a "kingmaker" after the elections.
If Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil drops a hint of supporting or opposing a particular coalition on the eve of polling on November 20, things may change overnight.
Now, the state has an unprecedented situation where there are six major political players with three on each side.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday asserted that Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, will not be restored even if Congress stalwart and late PM Indira Gandhi comes down from heaven.
The respective Dussehra rallies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray were once again about whose version of Hindutva is genuine and who is the true inheritor of party patriarch Bala Thackeray's legacy.
The Congress on Sunday demanded a thorough probe into Siddique's murder and said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who holds home portfolio, should take moral responsibility for law and order "failure" and resign.
Women-centric schemes could have proved a game-changer in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand, as both states witnessed a surge in women voters in the recently held assembly polls as well as return of the ruling alliances with a thumping majority.
The 100-foot-tall illegal billboard fell at a petrol pump in Ghatkopar during dust storms and unseasonal rains that lashed Mumbai on Monday.
The BJP is aiming to wrest control of the BMC from the Shiv Sena
Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Patole asserted there are no disagreements within the MVA, adding that discussions on seat-sharing were underway and would conclude soon.
Over the last five days, Modi visited all of south, held roadshows, made an aggressive bid for his party, and took on the rivals with full gusto, especially the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana that was in power for 10 years.
Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Telangana T Raja Singh has been booked for allegedly delivering a hate speech at a rally in Mumbai on January 29, a police official said on Thursday.
Different angles behind the killing were being probed, but the police will talk about it later, Fadnavis, who holds charge of the state home department, told reporters in Gondia district.
Bhandari, a three-term Congress legislator who was also a minister in the state in the past, joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders, including Union Minister Piyush Goyal and the party's national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.
'When honest, wealthy people come forward to serve India, people should feel proud and welcome them.'
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
Displaying a washing machine on its press conference dais, the Congress on Saturday taunted the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filing a closure report in a 2017 corruption case against Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel and said the ruling party's 'fully automatic washing machine' works on the principle -- 'join BJP, case closed'.
Counting of votes in the Maharashtra assembly elections will begin at 8 am on Saturday, with all eyes on the outcome of the battle between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti coalition and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, which is seeking to make a comeback.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
Loud music, bombastic action scenes, over-the-top dialogues that don't have any ring of truth to it followed by scenes of blood-oozing bodies floating in a river definitely don't make for a magnum opus!' exclaims Prasanna D Zore after watching the Chhaava trailer.
The Haryana victory will be a morale booster for the Bharatiya Janata Party and increase its bargaining power in the Mahayuti's seat-sharing talks for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections, according to political analysts.
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
Malik used to criticise the BJP-led Central government and the then opposition leader in Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, when he was a cabinet minister in the erstwhile MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
'There are 7,000 guns which are in the hands of the armed militia of the Kuki and Meitei communities.'
'Whenever the hike in voting percentage is more, the NDA gains more, and when the hike is negligible, the NDA falls.' 'I have established this in UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.'
An alleged attack on a Marathi-speaking family by a government employee in Thane district sparked outrage in the Maharashtra Assembly, where the BJP-led government assured justice and condemned the incident. Opposition parties demanded immediate action against the accused, Akhilesh Shukla, and his wife, who have been arrested. The incident has raised concerns about discrimination against Marathi people and fueled tensions in the state.
In a major setback for the Congress ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who announced his resignation from the Congress party on Monday, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday.
"We should not have a repeat of what happened in Mumbai. That there was a terror attack and there was no response," Jaishankar told reporters in Mumbai.
The trails of mega-mergers, tailwinds of expanding fleets, flights and airports will dot the fast-growing Indian aviation firmament in 2025, though the dark clouds of supply chain woes will persist longer. Also, new airline takeoffs, the future trajectory of revised norms to tackle pilot fatigue and efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be on the radar.
Bhujbal stridently opposed Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange's demand for Maratha quota from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) share.
Sule said the intra-family duel in the Lok Sabha polls will not waver her respect for Sunetra Pawar as she is her "elder brother's wife and like a mother".
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