The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra which completes two years in power on November 27 has survived against all odds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
For some of the business majors, the fund outgo for the 2019 elections has risen as much as 15 to 20 times, compared to the amount given to political parties five years ago.
The state has total 8,98,39,600 voters, including 1,06,76,013 in the age group of 18 to 25 years. A total of 6.5 lakh polling personnel have been deployed at 96,661 polling booths across the state.
The septuagenarian politician, once the right hand man of Bal Thackeray, is now battling irrelevance in a Balasaheb-less Shiv Sena
'The BJP's real pain lies in the fact that all their skullduggery and chicanery has failed to cow down the Shiv Sena. They just cannot digest this fact.'
'Whatever happens, we have decided to go alone.' 'This is the Shiv Sena's word and we will never go back on it.'
Congress leaders and workers continued their protests in several states on Thursday against Rahul Gandhi's questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald money-laundering case with many of them taken into preventive custody including former Union minister Renuka Chowdhury in Hyderabad after she allegedly grabbed the collar of a police official.
He is now the first non-Congress chief minister to win a second term in office in the state, seen as a Congress bastion until just five years ago.
'If there is one message coming out of Delhi, it is that the country is ready for inclusive, bipartisan politics, not based on caste, community and religion, but based on issues of a modern India.'
Kovind spoke to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over phone and thanked him for supporting his candidature.
Ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, Churchill Alemao 'merged' the NCP with the TMC. The 'merger' took place when Mamata Banerjee was in Mumbai talking to NCP supreme leader Sharad Pawar on how to forge Opposition unity!
Three journalists of China's state-run news agency Xinhua, who were denied extension of visa, have departed India, Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar said his party had anticipated such an action against its leader Malik as he 'speaks openly'.
From son of soil to Hindutva and from the BJP to Hardik Patel, the Shiv Sena has changed its stand time to time to reinvent itself.
Polling for the 288-seat Assembly is being held in a single-phase on Wednesday.
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao gives sanction to the CBI to prosecute former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh scam case.
'Like it or not, the Congress is still the only party with the potential to challenge the BJP at a pan-Indian level,' says T V R Shenoy.
With elections elsewhere in India showing that multi-pronged contests usually work to the BJP's favour, the party can gain if it hangs on stubbornly. In the meantime, any additional support helps. That is why the archbishop's comment attracted political traction in Kerala, observes Shyam G Menon.
Political observers feel that the outcome of the elections weighs in favour of the BJP which had won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, held earlier this year.
This was not Sharad Pawar or Prithviraj Chavan speaking. It was Uddhav Thackeray, the undisputed chief of the Shiv Sena!
Unlike other top police officers, A A Khan spoke boldly --- be it while defending 'encounters' in many of which he was involved, or in tracing the cause of the ghastly Radhabai Chawl incident, recalls Jyoti Punwani. Encounters were useful, he said, because hardened criminals who were targeted were beyond reform and no good for society.
'Why should we disclose how and from where we will get these numbers?'
'Was an NDA meeting held to decide if the Shiv Sena has to be removed from the NDA?'
'The foundation of the 2014 triumph was Narendra Modi's appeal to voters in the Hindi belt. The Bihar Vidhan Sabha polls will demonstrate if he continues to appeal to them,' says T V R Shenoy.
The BJP took a gamble and won; Uddhav Thackeray is down, but not out; Sharad Pawar accepts Modi's clout... The many meanings of the election results.
Two and a half hours into voting day and Maharashtra saw its top netas and Bollywood celebrities come out and vote. Among the early voters on Wednesday were...
Party also plans over 35 virtual rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Attacking BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav over his 'test of patriotism' tweet, Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant tells Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore that patriotism doesn't mean you should waste your time in queues.
This divisiveness is upsetting social cohesion and can throw the bright young people thronging to Bengaluru with billion dollar ideas in their creative minds off balance, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Mohan Rawale, a five-time former MP from Mumbai south central, was expelled from the Shiv Sena on Monday, days after his meeting with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, in an apparent clamp down on dissidence.
At a time when elections, both Parliament and assembly, are round the corner, die-hard Shiv Sainiks believe that Uddhav Thackeray needs to reconcile with some important leaders, because they can make or break the party's performance, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
Given Narendra Modi's trust in him, Praful Khoda Patel is unlikely to back down in Lakshadweep.
Schools across Maharashtra resumed physical sessions for classes 5 to 12 on Monday after being shut for over a year-and-a-half in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with students being welcomed back on campuses with flowers, balloons, sanitisers and social distancing protocols.
BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is predicted to win both seats -- Varanasi and Vadodara. Kejriwal is places at number 2 in Varanasi, says the ABP News-Nielsen exit poll. Senior BJP leader L K Advani is likely to win the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha for the sixth time.
'One senior Congress leader told me: "As long as Rahul is seen arriving there is no harm done, but when he opens his mouth, oh God...",' reveals T V R Shenoy.
One of the most prominent leaders of the socialist movement in the 1970s, George Fernandes was a senior Janata Dal leader before he founded the Samata Party.
Many corporate figures, who are not full-fledged businessmen, have felt the need to make a change in the system. That's why they are joining the AAP, Captain Gopinath tells Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa
'India has decided - Democracy needs to be celebrated.'
It seems that the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned to make grand the October 31 oath-taking ceremony of its first chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, at the Wankhede stadium in South Mumbai.
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