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.
Dismissing suggestions that he is not in the best of terms with Nationalist Congress Party, Maharashtra Chief Minister-designate Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday said he would take everyone along to provide a good government to the state.
The February 16 polls are clearly a precursor to the big fight in the state in 2014. Neerja Chowdhury analyses
Expressing happiness that Anna Hazare called off his fast, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Wendesday said the anti-graft crusader's advisors seemed to have a political agenda.
Chavan was reacting to Sena MP Sanjay Raut's statement earlier in the day that the Sena was 'ready to consider' the demand of the MLAs led by Eknath Shinde that it should end the MVA alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
Addressing participants at the Tenth Editors' Conference on Social Sector Issues-2010 in New Delhi on Tuesday, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said his ministries have been focussing on six priority sectors to ensure a better quality of life for Indian citizens.
Anna Hazare has taken exception to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's remarks that his team should come out in the open on joining politics, asking him whether only those who fight elections can speak against corruption.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday admitted that probe in the Adarsh housing scam has been delayed.
Maharashtra Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan's criticism of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has not gone down well with the saffron party which blasted the Congress leader.
Keeping in abeyance suggestions of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, government on Friday said it has no intention to allow private sector to set up nuclear power plants independently.
The Nationalist Congress Party took strong exception to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's view that the state home minister should have been from the Congress and not from the Sharad Pawar-led party.
Twenty-four workers of defunct textile mills in Mumbai on Saturday were handed over the keys of the flats built for them by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will embark on a fresh padayatra (foot march) from Gujarat to Meghalaya and during that period leaders and workers of the party's Maharashtra unit would criss-cross the state, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole said on Tuesday.
Studied silence at high command won't help party revival to face assembly polls. Sanjay Jog reports.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan speaks to Rajdeep Sardesai in this exclusive interview to CNN-IBN on Wednesday's triple blasts in Mumbai and how secured is the megapolis from terror. Edited excerpts:
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde on Monday criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's statement that Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray would lose his clout after the February 16 civic polls in the state saying he was "living in fool's paradise".
"By triangulation, we have located the area which is about 5-km radius circle and it has been identified based on the last contact with the air traffic control," Chavan, Union minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, told reporters
Nationalist Congress Party blamed former chief minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan for the poor showing by the party and also Congress in the assembly polls.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
The deputy chief minister called for the "strictest of strict" action against perpetrators of such crimes.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who spearheaded Congress' Lok Sabha election campaign in the state, attributed the party's rout to some policies of the central government.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Monday said the state government will not intervene in the Campa Cola building issue as the Supreme Court has not given any relief to residents of the society against demolition of their illegal flats.
Taking an aggressive stand on the incidents of heckling at functions attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Congress-ruled states, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday said he would not attend Thursday's function in Nagpur.
'Vijaya Raje Scindia had assured the prime minister that nothing would happen to the Babri Masjid'
Earlier attempts by the state governments to introduce the reservation for Marathas have been struck down by courts.
In the past too, Bhide has drawn flak for his controversial comments.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday held parleys with the chief ministers of Maharashtra and Haryana amidst the possibility of a change of guard in some of the states where it is in power as the party prepares for a massive rejig in the wake of its unprecedented debacle in Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress has hinted that former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan would be its lead campaigner, especially in the state's Marathwada region in the coming Lok Sabha polls, despite his being tainted in the Adarsh cooperative housing society scam.
The bench noted that the special investigation team was formed as the local police did not probe the case properly, and "there was a strong outburst of the common man."
The Bombay High Court has criticized the Maharashtra CID for its "lackadaisical" probe into the killing of the Badlapur school sexual assault case accused, Akshay Shinde, in an alleged police shootout on September 23. The court pointed to several lacunae in the investigation, including the lack of gunshot residue on Shinde's hands and fingerprints on the water bottle he was given. The court directed the CID to complete the probe in two weeks and submit all relevant material to the magistrate.
In signs of friction in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) over the chief minister's post, Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut on Friday said ally Congress should understand his party's contribution in increasing the grand old party's tally in the Lok Sabha polls.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday assured his government will continue the Ladki Bahin Yojana and fulfil Mahayuti's pre-poll promise of hiking the monthly stipend under the scheme to Rs 2,100 from Rs 1,500 now to eligible women.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is spreading lies and rumours through the social media and Congress workers should wake up to its thread and respond to it.
Racing against time to become a member of the Maharashtra legislature, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has decided to contest the state legislative council elections.
The Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray on Tuesday fielded Milind Narvekar, a close aide of party chief Uddhav Thackeray, in the biennial elections to 11 seats from the legislative council, taking the number of candidates in the fray to 12.
By resigning, the former deputy CM has struck pre-emptively against Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and used the opportunity to demonstrate that it is he who calls the shots in the state unit of the Nationalist Congress Party, says Neerja Chowdhury.
Interestingly, among all the six former CMs, only Fadnavis, the first BJP leader to hold the top post in the state, completed full five-year term.
"Such trips are cleared at the level of home minister. I wasn't briefed about it," Chavan, who was the chief minister last year said.
The Bombay high court has said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has a legitimate right for an expeditious decision on merits over a 2014 defamation complaint for his alleged remarks against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.