Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
Shiv Sena member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Monday said his party is ready for a "street fight and a legal battle", ahead of the crucial hearing in the Supreme Court against the disqualification notice issued by the Maharashtra Assembly's deputy speaker to rebel party MLAs.
In a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed rebel leader Eknath Shinde was pressured to go against the Uddhav Thackeray-led party and also alleged that at least two MLAs accompanying the minister in Surat were beaten up by the police and goons under the BJP's "Operational Kamal".
By breaking ranks with his Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, Thackeray has shown that he can leave the MVA altogether.
The Shiv Sena said Opposition was not targeted in such manner even during Emergency
The BJP can win two Rajya Sabha seats with the number of MLAs it has, while the ruling allies Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP in Maharashtra can win a seat each.
"My heart is full of pain and anger," he told reporters in his remarks ahead of Parliament's Monsoon Session, amid his criticism by opposition parties for not speaking on the ethnic violence in the north east state.
In an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana, the MVA lead party, in a rare move, praised BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis for his 'cleverness and astute poll management.
Shiv Sena's Kolhapur district president Sanjay Pawar will be its second candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls, party chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said on Tuesday, in what is a clear snub to Chhatrapati Sambhaji who was seeking support for his candidature.
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.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday said Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has recognised Rahul Shewale as the Shiv Sena leader in the Lower House of Parliament.
Shewale insisted that a large number of Sena leaders were in favour of an alliance with the BJP and keen to contest the next Lok Sabha polls under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But if the reports are found to be wrong, those who made these allegations against him should quit politics, he challenged the leaders from the Opposition parties, as he alleged that efforts were on to defame him.
Matondkar had last year resigned from the Congress party, a key ally of the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
It also cautioned that if the legislation is passed, the "two crutches" on which the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is running at the Centre would not be able to escape responsibility.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah held discussions for seat sharing in Maharashtra for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with coalition partners Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party president Ajit Pawar.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party would oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards, and accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
'There are legions of unemployed degree holders across rural and semi-urban belts in Maharashtra. Now, they aren't finding brides.' 'This issue has now snowballed into a social crisis. In 2014 and 2019, they had voted for the BJP.'
'A country cannot be run on lines that everyone should be in agreement and those who disagree should be silenced.' 'If this is how they look at democracy, then I can only wish good luck to the future of parliamentary democracy in India.'
This is the third time in two days that Singhal, the Assam Housing and Urban Affairs Minister, has met the dissidents.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for tough decisions and unity within the party after the Congress suffered electoral defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana. In a meeting with top party leaders, Kharge highlighted the need to strengthen the organization from the grassroots, fix accountability, and address internal bickering. He also urged leaders to remain united and avoid public criticism of each other. The Congress chief expressed concern over the party's performance in state elections despite a strong showing in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year. He acknowledged the need to learn from the setbacks and improve the party's strategy and communication to counter its rivals' propaganda.
A local court in Ajmer has issued notices to the dargah committee, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on a plea seeking to declare the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti a temple. The petition, filed in September, has sparked a heated debate, with politicians and community leaders weighing in on the potentially volatile issue. The dargah committee has declined to comment, but the Anjuman Syed Zadgan, a body representing the caretakers of the dargah, described the petition as a deliberate attempt to fracture society along communal lines. The petition comes just days after four people were killed in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, following a local court ordering survey of a Mughal-era shrine. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which fixed August 15, 1947, as the cut-off date for status quo on the character of religious places, is at the centre of much of the debate. Several politicians, including Union minister Giriraj Singh and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, have weighed in on the issue. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the civil court's decision to entertain the petition unwarranted and has asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene.
Senior bureaucrat Smita Sabharwal courted controversy by questioning the need for reservation for the differently-abled people in the All India Services (AIS).
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, he claimed that his decision to not contest the election was aimed at preventing 'horse-trading', and accused Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray of breaking his promise on providing Shiv Sena's support for his second term in the Upper House of Parliament.
Firing a fresh salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party which had accused the Shiv Sena of paying only lip service to the cause of Hindutva, the latter's member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed that the Sena was the first party in the country to contest an election on the Hindutva plank.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said, "All airlines have come together banning him (Gaikwad), but it is our fundamental right (to travel by air)."
The depiction of hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi has kicked off a row with a section of viewers objecting to the 'humane' projection of the perpetrators.
Jaishankar briefed the leaders of all parties about the situation in the violence-hit nation and the steps taken by the Indian government.
The Congress and AAP had fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi, while they contested separately in Punjab.
Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations in its report, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group.
Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala also said, "Saheb knows his qualities very well". He also shared a copy of the news report.
They slammed the Union and state governments for the collapse, with Uddhav Thackeray calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's apology as one "smacking of arrogance", while Sharad Pawar said the episode was an example of corruption.
'Undeniably, Modi's position has stabilised and he has staged a comeback of sorts from the weeks after the Lok Sabha results.' 'Coalition partners are likely to be more tolerant of Modi... The forthcoming elections in Delhi and Bihar will determine whether this continues or not.' 'To win Delhi and Bihar, Modi will have to work in conjunction with the RSS.' 'However, because of the 'truce' that has been worked out within the Sangh Parivar, Modi will have to be more consultative than he has been in the past ten years,' reveals Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
After Modi is elected the leader of NDA MPs, senior members of the alliance like Telugu Desam Party's N Chandrababu Naidu, Janata Dal-United's Nitish Kumar and Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde will join the prime minister for a meeting with President Droupadi Murmu to present her the list of parliamentarians supporting him, some alliance members said.
There were some tense moments as BJP members, carrying placards, marched towards the opposition members near the Gandhi statue in Parliament premises to condemn their 'undemocratic actions' inside the House.
The preferred format would be for the top BJP leadership in the government to reach out to the alliance leaders on a case-to-case basis.
'The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months.'
His political career began with his involvement in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and he later became a member of the Shiv Sena.
From the word go, Bihar growled its needs out when an MP from the state said aloud: "Give something for Bihar also, Madam." Every time the Budget mentioned cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh, "Kursi Bachao" was the call from Congress MPs.
This is the first meeting between the two leaders after the Shiv Sena formed the coalition government in Maharashtra with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.
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