A meeting of the joint committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill on Friday witnessed fireworks with members vociferously opposing certain provisions of the draft legislation, leading to a brief walkout by opposition members.
Several legislators cutting across party lines in Maharashtra on Thursday staged an agitation outside the Mantralaya, the state secretariat in south Mumbai, in support of the demand for reservation to the Maratha community.
Under the alliance arrangement for the mayoral elections, the AAP will fight for the mayor's seat while the Congress will contest the posts of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor.
The Sena-UB has fielded popular wrestler Chandrahar Patil from Sangli despite the Congress announcing Vishal Patil's name from the same seat.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
The two sections were not retained in the new bills as the government thought they will go against the judgments of the Supreme Court.
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.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
But the atmosphere is now conducive for the Mahayuti to continue in power in Maharashtra thanks to the government's people-centric schemes, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is giving promises that it cannot execute, he said.
An accidental encounter between Maharashtra deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray in a lift in Vidhan Bhawan on Thursday caused ripples in state political circles.
'If you want to have fair elections you should have an officer, who is appointed as per the rules laid down for such appointments, which is based on seniority.'
The Raj Thackeray-led MNS senses an opportunity after the Shiv Sena-UBT candidate's lead fell to less than 7,000 votes in the Worli assembly segment during the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking at a joint rally of Mahayuti partners in Mumbai, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis supported Shinde's claims, stating that the NDA leaders did not pay enough attention to the lies spread by the Opposition during the campaign.
Meanwhile, a structural engineer named in the case registered in connection with the collapse of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's statue claimed that he was not the structural consultant for the project.
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Maharashtra Congress accused the govt of being biased against the state, and claimed that it was planning to reduce the importance of Mumbai as the financial capital.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kirit Somaiya, who was vocal about allegations of corruption against many Nationalist Congress Party leaders, including the recently inducted ministers Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Sunil Tatkare and Hasan Mushrif, on Tuesday refrained from commenting against them.
While Fadnavis has admitted that the letter was sent to him in good faith, he said that he would have to discuss with the party leadership before taking a decision.
Fadnavis also conceded that issues of coordination exist with the Shiv Sena and the NCP.
Even as parleys continue in both states, the grand old party is expected to contest less than 110 seats in the November 20 polls for the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
Amid talks of cross-voting, three of the 37 Congress MLAs in Maharashtra skipped a meeting called by the party ahead of the legislative council polls on Friday.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said the Maharashtra government's Ladki Bahin scheme, introduced to provide financial assistance to women, could affect the timely payment of subsidies in other sectors.
Ahead of the Mumbai meeting, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday said that a few more political parties were likely to join the opposition INDIA during its upcoming meeting.
The seat-sharing arrangement between the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party will be the same as that in 2019, senior Sena leader Gajanan Kirtikar said on Friday.
These "instructions" were purportedly given by Bawankule in Ahmednagar where he was addressing a gathering of BJP workers on the management of poll booths.
According to Gandhi's lawyer Kashi Prasad Shukla, the Congress MP, who appeared before special judge Shubham Verma, said he never made a statement against anyone that could lead to a case of defamation.
Raut's claims have drawn sharp reactions from the BJP, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Congress's candidate from Nagpur.
Pawar said PM Modi's charisma is seen all over the country and hoped Maharashtra which follows secular thoughts will benefit from this charisma.
The opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra on Tuesday announced its seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray securing a substantial portion with 21 seats, while the Congress will contest 17 seats, and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar 10 seats.
The Congress leader said he believes that democracy is derailed and "we are becoming too authoritarian". "It's all about one-man show," he said.
Following an invitation from Thackeray, Rao arrived at 'Varsha', the official residence of Maharashtra CM.
Of the 288 seats in the state, BJP had won 105 in 2019 state polls, while the undivided NCP had bagged 54 seats.
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The two-day deliberations, which will be held at Grand Hyatt in the suburbs, will begin in the evening of August 31 and from 10am on September 1. The meeting will be followed by a press conference, Raut informed.
Raj Thackeray listed out his expectations from the PM in his third term in office.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
The complaint in this regard was filed by Kirit Somaiya in July, the police official added.
Shah visited the residences of CM Ekanth Shinde, and DCM Devendra Fadnavis to take darshan of Lord Ganesh.
While the responses of the candidates were predictable, depending on which side they belonged to, an interesting point slipped through when Rahul Shewale cited the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as a scheme that would add to Mumbai's importance. No big infrastructural project in Mumbai, he said, could be successful without the Centre's nod.
Uddhav Thackeray claimed the new Narendra Modi government at the Centre, which was sworn in on June 9, will collapse and will be replaced by an INDIA bloc dispensation.
'This is becoming the new normal. Accountability of @AshwiniVaishnaw ji is zero. The GOI has no answers whatsoever'
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