Senior Congress leader D D Lapang was on Monday sworn in as Meghalaya chief minister by Governor S S Sidhu, who rejected the demand of the newly-formed Nationalist Congress Party-led Meghalaya Progressive Alliance saying the decision was aimed at preventing horse-trading. Stung by the Governor's decision, the MPA led by former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma decided to move the Supreme Court on Tuesday against installation of the Congress government.
There are many life lessons to be learnt from the way Sharad Pawar handled the Maharashtra political crisis.
The approval by Maharashtra assembly Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal to appoint Ajay Choudhary as the Shiv Sena's group leader in the House in place of rebel leader Eknath Shinde may expedite the need for the ruling coalition to prove its majority through a floor test, feels a constitutional expert.
Three MLAs abstained, while 20 legislators, most of them from Congress and the NCP, including Congress's Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar, both former ministers, were absent during the trust vote.
Nationalist Congress Party on Thursday said it would support Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan if he was planning to reconsider his decision to reject the report of the commission which probed Adarsh Society scam.
Pawar was the deputy CM twice in the 15-year regime of Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra during 1999-2014.
The Nationalist Congress Party on Thursday attributed the drubbing the Congress-led UPA has received in polls mainly to the "communication deficit" on part of outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and also to issues like hike in prices of fuel and LPG cylinders by the ruling dispensation.
Chhagan Bhujbal, Jayant Patil (both from the NCP), Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut (both from the Congress), Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai (both from the Sena) took oath as ministers along with Thackeray.
Amid the ongoing tussle between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Sena over sharing of power in the next state government, Fadnavis also asserted that he will be the chief minister for another five years.
'The Maharashtra government is not being very clear; they are keeping quiet.'
'You can wake up a person who is sleeping, but how do you wake up a person who's pretending to sleep.'
The Congress on Friday won the Amravati division graduates constituency, taking the tally of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) to three in elections for five Maharashtra Legislative Council seats, a result which has come as a jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party-Balasahebnachi Shiv Sena alliance.
Pawar said, "I will meet PM Narendra Modi on July 18. During the meeting, I will take up various issues related to farmers with him. (NCP leader) Praful Patel and I will attend the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meeting."
Narvekar's father-in-law Ramraje Naik of NCP is the chairperson of the Legislative Council.
"I am also quitting as member of Legislative Council," Thackeray said in a webcast.
After their victory in the assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday moved forward towards government formation in both states with party chief Amit Shah holding parleys with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari for charting out further strategy.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Amid simmering tension at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, the police on Monday foiled the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti's (MMES) mega protest in Belagavi and detained its leaders even as several members from opposition parties from Maharashtra were stopped from crossing the border.
The move came at a time when deliberations between the Congress, the NCP and the Shiv Sena seemingly reached the final stage on Friday.
The Shiv Sena has decided to move its MLAs to a luxury hotel at Powai in northeast Mumbai ahead of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, a party leader said on Friday, as the ruling coalition spearhead treads a cautious path after being outsmarted by the BJP in the last week's Rajya Sabha polls.
The Nationalist Congress Party leader was speaking in the assembly on a resolution moved by Speaker Rahul Narvekar urging the government to formulate a new women's policy.
An MLA from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction and a legislator of the Nationalist Congress Party virtually came to blows in the Vidhan Bhavan premises in Mumbai on Wednesday after shouting slogans against each other.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar might have discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the delay in the appointment of 12 members to the state Legislative Council from the Governor's quota, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said on Wednesday.
A group of 34 newly elected members of the legislative assembly of Bharatiya Janata Party from Vidarbha on Monday left for Mumbai in a chartered flight to attend a key meeting of the party.
Former state minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil was on Monday elected as the Congress legislature party leader in Maharashtra, where the party has lost power.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
Speaking at a rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Saturday, Raj Thackeray had criticised Sharad Pawar, accusing him of 'playing the caste card from time to time and dividing society'.
'When I felt that the party is drifting away from Hindutva, I tried to speak to Uddhavji. But nobody was ready to listen.'
The MLAs of the three ruling parties and the BJP have reached Mumbai ahead of the elections.
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.
A close aide of the former chief minister said he was busy holding meetings at his residence ahead of the two-day special session of the Maharashtra legislature from July 3.
After being outwitted by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the ruling Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is now facing another challenge of getting all its six candidates elected to the state Legislative Council in the June 20 polls, which has once again put the spotlight on Independents and smaller parties.
A tough administrator and an immensely popular face in his largely rural assembly segment Baramti in Pune district, Ajit is also a maverick leader who doesn't shy from being on a different page from his party.
Narvekar, who polled 164 votes, defeated Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi who got 107 votes.
Thackeray and BJP legislature party leader Devendra Fadnavis lauded Patole's work as legislator and farmers' leader.
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.
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde will be the new chief minister of Maharashtra, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis said on Thursday.
While declining to suspend the Lakshadweep MP's conviction, the high court suspended the 10-year sentence given to Faizal and three others in the case.
The 13-day-old Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra headed by Devendra Fadnavis will seek a vote of confidence on Wednesday which it is expected to win with the help of Nationalist Congress Party despite its continuing stand-off with Shiv Sena.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
