Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Friday slammed as "completely mischievous" and "baseless" a media report about his meeting with BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
The real surprise in these results came from Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM. Of the 29 Muslim candidates who got elected to the 227-strong BMC, the Congress and the AIMIM between them bagged 22.
Deepak Kesarkar, a Sena MLA and spokesperson for the rebel faction headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, sought to know what Pawar gained by causing pain to Bal Thackeray.
Union ministers recently declared their assets to the Prime Minister's Office which put it up on its web site for public knowledge. We compared these declarations to the ones that some ministers made when in 2009, and here's what we found.
Top leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi, including Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray, Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar head Sharad Pawar along with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray, will lead the Opposition's November 1 protest march in Mumbai against alleged irregularities in voters' lists.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, whose surprise resignation from the post on Tuesday has had the state's politics in turmoil, denied on Wednesday evening that any "rift" existed between him and his uncle, NCP chief Sharad Pawar.
The senior Pawar, however, said that the entire family campaigns during elections.
Former Union Minister Sharad Pawar has refuted claims made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the BJP's victory in the Maharashtra assembly polls ended the politics of betrayal and treachery started by Pawar in 1978. Pawar stated that he was the Chief Minister in 1978 and was unaware of Shah's whereabouts at the time. He also criticized the lack of communication between current political leaders and called for a return to respectful dialogue. He also highlighted Shah's past legal issues, including being externed from Gujarat. In response to speculation about the future of the MVA coalition, Pawar said discussions will take place within the next 10 days to address key issues. An editorial in the Shiv Sena (UBT) mouthpiece 'Saamana' also criticized Shah's remarks, calling them 'arrogant' and questioning the BJP's actions in relation to Pawar and Balasaheb Thackeray.
Interacting with media persons after the launch of the party unit, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said: "There are people here in the US who are passionate about India despite living here for so many years and we are here today to show our commitment to Indian Americans. We would like to lend a voice to their emotions, sentiments and thought processes and carry them back home."
The veteran politician's desire to quit politics may just be a new entry into the long list of occasions where he has gone back on his word, notes Neeta Kolhatkar.
It won't be surprising if Sharad Pawar plunges into the electoral fray if he finds that he has enough numbers to topple N Srinivasan.
Pawar said state Congress leaders Ashok Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat had met him and extended an invitation to participate in the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday reaffirmed his party's support to Congress at the Centre and in Maharashtra, where a crisis has erupted in the wake of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's resignation.
As he is laid to rest, Indian cricket bids farewell to one of its greatest administrators -- a visionary who understood that breaking monopolies and building stadiums were about the same thing: Giving millions of cricket-loving Indians the infrastructure worthy of their passion.
In an apparent dig at Ajit, Pawar senior said if someone keeps saying he will take everything, people may not say anything but will disapprove of it.
He said last-minute decisions by the Narendra Modi government with an eye on polls will not be helpful in swaying the mood of the electorates.
Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar president Sharad Pawar's remarks on Monday virtually declaring new entrant Harshavardhan Patil's candidature for the upcoming assembly polls in Maharashtra has irked a section of party leaders that was eyeing ticket from the Indapur seat.
Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar head Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday separately visited the memorial of the state's first chief minister Y B Chavan in Karad and paid tributes to him on his death anniversary.
After 47 years in electoral politics, Union minister Sharad Pawar on Monday became a member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time.
'People have asked us to sit in the Opposition.'
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday after he sustained leg injury from a fall at his Delhi residence
The Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday did not rule out Sharad Pawar as prime minister after the coming Lok Sabha elections, as it sought to put pressure on Congress for convening an early meeting of the United Progressive Alliance to chalk out a common strategy and to finalise seat sharing with allies.
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to use the 'clock' symbol in its publicity material in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections with a disclaimer that the matter was sub judice before it.
Thackeray on Sunday said he had deferred his visit to Ayodhya in UP as there was ploy to "trap" his party workers into legal issues.
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday joined the give-more-jobs-to-the-sons-of-the-soil bandwagon. Inaugurating Piaggio Vehicles India Limited's manufacturing plant in Baramati, Pawar from a public platform asked the Piaggio management to provide more jobs to the locals from Baramati. "I am very happy with Piaggio's investments in Baramati. I am happy with everything Piaggio does in India. However, there is one lacuna that needs to be filled," said Pawar.
She had no greed for power and she sacrificed for the nation by appointing Manmohan Singh as the prime minister, the NCP chief said.
Maharashtra is set to hold local body elections on December 2 for municipal councils and nagar panchayats. The polls are seen as a test of the ruling coalition's strength after their recent assembly election victory.
Saying that he had loss a "dear friend" in Bal Thackeray's death, Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday described the Shiv Sena supremo as a "magnanimous" leader who was ready "to pay any political price" for his stand.
Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS release a joint manifesto for Mumbai civic polls, promising free power, allowances for domestic helps, and property tax waivers.
The Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT) have announced a state-level coordination committee to prepare for upcoming local body elections. The MVA clarified that no proposal has been received regarding an alliance with the MNS.
NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar has praised the RSS for its dedicated cadre and urged his party to create a similar base committed to progressive ideas. He attributed the NCP's recent electoral setbacks to complacency and a failure to communicate its work for the OBC community. Pawar also emphasized the need for social engineering to address caste tensions and announced that 50% of the tickets for upcoming local body elections will be given to new faces.
Union Agriculture minister and NCP strongman Sharad Pawar filed his nomination for the presidentship of the Mumbai Cricket Association on Wednesday, a day after BJP leader Gopinath Munde did so, to make it a two-way fight at the October 18 biennial elections.
The tit for tat actions came a day after Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP government as deputy chief minister along with eight other NCP MLAs who were inducted as ministers.
Refusing to blame the Bharatiya Janata Party for the attack on him, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday sought to downplay the incident and asked Nationalist Congress Party workers not to take the law into their hands and maintain peace. "I don't think it is appropriate for me to blame any political party for the incident. I should not go to that level of blaming anyone," he told reporters outside his residence, hours after a young man slapped him.
While Nationalist Congress Party chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today reiterated that he would not be contesting the Lok Sabha election this time, some senior party leaders would have to brace up for moving out of the state.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Sunday declared that he was not going to be the party's chief ministerial candidate for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly election slated for September-October.
'While taking the decision regarding cricket, the Supreme Court has said that the officials should not be above 70 years of age and they have described these positions as "lucrative" which made me very sad and that's why I don't have any wish to work any more'
"People have asked us to sit in the opposition. The thought of trying to get into power doesn't even cross our minds. We will work to expand our base," he further said.