Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
The court acquitted Saseendran holding that no case had been made out against him that warranted conviction.
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!
'The sixth seat was a risk for the MVA, but Uddhav Thackeray took the risk,' Pawar said. 'In politics, one has to take risks.'
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.
Except for the Devendra Fadnavis- led government during 2014-19, Anil Deshmukh has managed to find a berth in the state ministry irrespective of which party came to power in the last over two decades.
Fearing poaching, the party had shifted its legislators to various resorts in Gujarat in the one last week, dividing them in zone-wise groups. While some MLAs gathered in Rajkot in Saurashtra, few others were in Abu Road in Rajasthan.
'When I felt that the party is drifting away from Hindutva, I tried to speak to Uddhavji. But nobody was ready to listen.'
"I am not leaving the party. Defection is not in my blood," Pankaja told reporters.
While the BJP and ally Shiv Sena are yet to announce the seat-sharing pact for the polls, scheduled on October 21, the Amit Shah-led party believes it will be back to power with a thumping majority.
'I want to warn Ajit dada and all those who have stabbed Pawar saheb by joining hands with the BJP.' 'Don't write saheb's obituaries so soon.'
Hours after asserting that there was no split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is its leader, party chief Sharad Pawar on Friday claimed that he did not make any such statement.
'The numbers may favour us now, but we are in no hurry to form the next government in Maharashtra.'
The perception is rapidly gaining ground that though the chief minister is from the Shiv Sena, the government is being run by the NCP.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
A BJP leader, on condition of anonymity, said all party MLAs have been asked not to leave the state.
The 61-year-old MLA from Islampur seat of Maharashtra has been asked to depose before the federal agency in Mumbai on Friday, they said. Patil, a former minister of home and finance, is also the Maharashtra president of the NCP and is a seven-term legislator.
Failure to get elected by May 28, ie within six months of taking oath as CM, would have resulted into a Constitutional crisis for the Thackeray-led government, which was averted after the Election Commission announced elections to the nine seats in the Council.
Rohini Khadse will fight the elections from her father's Muktainagar constituency in north Maharashtra.
After snapping ties with the Congress in the run up to the October 15 Maharashtra polls, the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party has decided to support Congress rebel Vilas Patil Undalkar against former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan from the Karad South assembly constituency.
Veteran legislator Ganpatrao Deshmukh on Sunday created history by winning his 11th assembly election.
Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party's Hekhani Jakhalu and Salhoutuo Kruse created history on Thursday by becoming the first two women to be elected to the Nagaland assembly, officials said.
The elections for the 288-member House are due in September-October this year.
Shelar also claimed that the MVA govt was obstructing the Centre's strong actions to tackle the drug menace in the country.
Thackeray claimed when the Shiv Sena was with the BJP, he (Shinde) would say the BJP is harming the Sena.
Soren also claimed that his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma indulged in "purchase" of Jharkhand MLAs.
'Who else will solve these issues if not the chief minister?' 'Who else shall we take our complaints to?'
Once an auto-rickshaw driver in Thane city adjoining Mumbai, Shinde (58) quickly emerged as a key Sena leader in the Thane-Palghar region after joining politics and is known for aggressive approach towards issues of public interest.
In the letter sent on Sunday, the Lok Sabha MP from Amravati has demanded strict action against Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay PandeY.
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.
Addressing a press conference, BJP leader and former Maharashtra minister Ashish Shelar taunted the Sena-NCP-Congress for "identification parade" of their MLAs and termed it as a cruel joke on the people of the state and democracy.
The message from Raut read 'Namaskar mi Sanjay Raut. Jai Maharashtra'.
The NCP leader defeated his cousin Pankaja Munde of the BJP in the just-concluded assembly elections from Parli in Beed district of central Maharashtra.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray's son Amit Thackeray on Sunday got married to his fiancee and fashion designer Mitali Borude at a hotel in Mumbai's central area of Lower Parel.
Narvekar, who polled 164 votes, defeated Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi who got 107 votes.
'This is the filthy RSS male chauvinist mentality at work. Men do the raping but women need to be taught good values'
"We want to see Aaditya Thackeray as the next chief minister. But Uddhav ji will take the final decision," said Pratap Sarnaik, MLA from neighbouring Thane city.
Nationalist Congress Party in Kerala, a component of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front, has conveyed its reservations to the central leadership over the offer of support to the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government in Maharashtra.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the Goa Assembly polls, also hit out at the Trinamool Congress for its barbs at the Congress for not forging an alliance with it, saying the party continued to poach Congress leaders, despite making an offer of a tie-up.
