'The BJP's solo aim in Mumbai and Maharashtra is to finish off the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP.'
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde could not have been sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra if the assembly speaker was not restrained from deciding the disqualification petitions pending against 39 MLAs, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
Earlier P K Sawant held the record of being the Maharashtra CM with the shortest term -- from November 25 to December 4, 1963. He was made the caretaker chief minister after the death of his predecessor Marotrao Kannamwar.
Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27.
Calling for a trust vote merely on the ground of differences between MLAs of a ruling party can topple an elected government, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday, adding that the governor of a state cannot lend his office to effectuate a particular result.
NCP leaders Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Congress leaders and former chief ministers Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj and former speakers Dilip Walse Patil (NCP) and Haribhau Bagade of the Bharatiya Janata Party were among the members to take oath early.
Raut said that he did not need anyone's 'permission' regarding the issue.
A vacation bench of Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala was told by advocate Sudhanshu S Choudhuri that the two MLAs have been booked for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and are in jail.
With the NCP hit by multiple desertions ahead of the Maharashtra polls, Sharad Pawar assumed charge of the campaign and traversed the state.
He was accompanied by his father, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, and mother Rashmi while filing nomination papers.
NCP national spokesperson Clyde Crasto also claimed that the party working president Supriya Sule and state unit chief Jayant Patil are contacting all the 53 MLAs and the picture will become clearer by Monday.
The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, whose elected members assaulted Samajwadi Party legislator Abu Azmi in the Maharashtra assembly for taking oath in Hindi, on Tuesday warned him on speaking against Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
The development came within hours of Fadnavis' presser in which he denied that the Sena was ever promised the CM's post for two-and-a-half years when the alliance was formalised before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
NCP MLAs have been moved to Hotel Grand Hyatt in Santacruz and Sofitel in Bandra-Kurla Complex
"We realised that we don't have the required numbers to form the government and we don't want to indulge in horse-trading," Fadnavis told reporters after announcing his decision.
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
The court indicated that it was not inclined to allow the amendment and sought to know from Malik's lawyers if they wish to withdraw the petition and file a fresh plea.
Sena MP Sanjay Raut, however, said his party was firm on a written assurance from the senior alliance partner over power sharing, including rotating CM's post for 2.5 years.
'The BJP leaders will go crazy if they are thrown out of power. They will lose their mental balance'
The Mumbai police arrested a man from Bengaluru for allegedly threatening Maharashtra cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray, an official said on Thursday.
The Shiv Sena is leading currently in terms of criminal candidates. Out of the 14 declared by them in the first list 12 have a criminal background, as per the Association for Democratic Reforms.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
I will help, 100 per cent. Come (to me) with your parents, the MLA said.
'Maharashtra governor did not do anything that was contrary to the Supreme Court's decision.'
The Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday revoked the suspension of the five legislators who had allegedly assaulted a policeman on the assembly premises in March this year.
The NDA, led by the BJP, has 5,37,683 votes includes the Shiv Sena, and the shortage is around 12,000 votes.
While addressing a joint press conference with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai, NCP chief Sharad Pawar paraded 3 MLAs to display that all are with him.
The return of a BJP-Sena regime after a love-hate war and gap of 15 years, demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, collapse of Congress-Nationalisy Congress Party alliance and rising cases of farmers' suicides dominated Maharashtra's political landscape in 2014.
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.
The 71-year-old Dalit leader is expected to have a smooth sailing in the event of an election.
On Sunday, a team comprising deputy commissioner of police Hemraj Singh Rajput, assistant commissioner of police Nitin Jadhav and two inspectors, reached Fadnavis's bungalow 'Sagar' around noon.
The 13-day Devendra Fadnavis Maharashtra government won the Trust vote in the Maharashtra assembly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he would not a utter a word against estranged Bharatiya Janata Party ally Shiv Sena during the campaign for the October 15 Maharashtra polls as a mark of respect to Bal Thackeray.
On a day of dramatic developments, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray kept the door open saying Bharatiya Janata Party should come clear on whether it wants to take Nationalist Congress Party's support in Maharashtra in two or three days.
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.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
The BJP has the cadres, organisation, and extensive funding. But in the absence of a towering political personality like Manohar Parrikar, the Goa outcome is hard to predict.
Following are the possible contenders for the post of Maharashtra chief minister. We request our readers to take the poll at the end of this list.
Maharashtra Assembly Deputy Speaker Vasant Purke on Tuesday suspended Shiv Sena legislator Om Raje Nimbalkar for lifting the mace from the speaker's table in protest against a minister's reply on the acute water scarcity in Osmanabad city of Marathwada region.
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