As the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections gathers momentum, Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, the leaders of two prominent regional parties in Maharashtra, are fighting a battle for political survival.
With organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, telling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman they want OPS back, the government is in a bind, report Shiva Rajora and Aditi Phadnis.
Taking its probe to the doorsteps of former Uttar Pradesh minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday questioned his cousin and member of state legislative council Akshay Pratap Singh in connection with the violence in Balipur village in which Deputy Superintendent of Police Zia-ul-Haq was killed.
Officials said the polling went off peacefully in all segments including special polling stations along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) with no untoward incident reported from anywhere.
'The focus of the legislation will be to minimise user harm and increase the accountability of platforms, while also promoting innovation.'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the Election Commission's decision to conduct an election on May 4 to fill up the sole vacancy in the Maharashtra Legislative Council for which Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is contesting. A three-judge bench of justices J M Panchal, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan, however, allowed the petitioner, Shiv Sena Member of Legislative Council Anil Dattatray Parab, to implead the chief minister and issued a notice to the EC.
A substantial number of castes and groups are already placed in the reserved category, getting about 52 per cent of reservations altogether. It would be completely inequitable to place the Maratha community in the Other Backward Class (OBC) category, it said.
'Bommai is everybody's man and nobody's man'
Members of the Legislative Council asked how some former legislators could enter the Vidhan Bhavan premises amid COVID-19-related restrictions and sought a report on the matter.
Ansari said the Muslim community is now shedding the 'illusion' created by opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi are facing multiple problems in Lok Sabha seats like Sangli, Madha and Satara in western Maharashtra due to political dynasties, old rivalries and one-upmanship, prompting a flurry of meetings before five phase polls begin in the state on April 19.
AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked the leaders and party workers to bury their internal differences and ensure victory of Congress candidates in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council elections.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati welath ahs grown in leaps and bounds since she took over as Uttar Pradesh chief minister, her declaratioin made while filing her nomination seeking a fresh term in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council shows her to possess assets of 88 crore (880 million).
The rebel legislators have been maintaining that they were forced to go against Thackeray as he kept ignoring their plea to snap ties with the MVA allies despite being told that these constituents were trying to 'finish off' the Sena.
With major political parties shying away from giving them tickets for Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, lesser-known political outfits have become a hot favourite of listed gangsters and those having a criminal past.
In the wake of recent violent incidents in Pune and elsewhere over some objectionable posts on Facebook, Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil on Tuesday announced that Cyber Crime Investigation Cells would be set up at five places in the state soon.
With discussions on the UCC taking centrestage, he said the BJP government in the state will move towards implementing one law for all, "only after talking to all the parties".
Kushwaha was referring to 'Luv Kush' rally in Patna, a veritable gathering of Kurmis and Koeris upset with supposed hegemony of numerically powerful Yadavs which Prasad, then helming Bihar, was seen as embodying.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has tested positive for Covid-19.
Despite chairman Sukhram Singh Yadav's attempt to continue the proceedings, the SP members continued slogan shouting leading to adjournments for 15 minutes twice and then till 12 noon.
'Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka were competing for the Foxconn-Vedanta semiconductor manufacturing plant'
'I hope that Macho Man agrees to debate her, because I think she will do spectacularly well in the debate.'
The bench said that multiple local factors made it difficult for the top court to "frame uniform or standard guideline for trial courts across the length and breadth of this country" and it left the issue of ensuring speedy trial to the high courts as they have the power of superintendence over the trial courts.
On chances of taking uncle Shivpal Yadav's Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia along in the polls, he said, "I dont have any problem in this. He and his men will be given due honour".
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday apologised in both Houses of the legislature, as well as outside, for remarks made a day before on the importance of women's education to control population growth.
The BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
BRS leader and former Telangana minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy claimed that Kavitha was taken to Delhi on a flight at 8.45 pm.
Thorat had last week resigned as CLP leader after criticising Maharashtra unit chief Nana Patole's style of functioning.
Congress MLA Narensh Saini and Samajwadi Party MLA Hari Om Yadav, both from Uttar Pradesh, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday, a day after the ruling party suffered a jolt with the resignation of state government minister Swami Prasad Maurya.
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has received "positive" feedback from industry regarding the 45-day payments cycle for MSMEs, according to a senior official familiar with the matter. The comment assumes significance amid concerns raised by some MSMEs that big companies may stop buying from small and medium suppliers and instead choose to make purchases from unregistered enterprises.
In days of smart, networked technology and no shame over collateral damage, what will blow up next -- cars, mobile phones, TV sets, refrigerators? And where?, asks Shyam G Menon.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
Amid political turmoil in Maharashtra following a revolt by Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde, six members of legislative assembly (MLAs) and a member of legislative council (MLC) from the neighbouring state arrived in Gujarat's Surat city on Thursday and were later flown to Guwahati in Assam, where party rebels are camping, in two chartered flights, sources said.
The term 'love jihad' is used by right-wing groups to allege a ploy by Muslim men to lure Hindu women into religious conversion through marriage.
The bypolls were necessitated after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated their seats following their election to the Uttar Pradesh legislative council.
The Enforcement Directorate on Friday arrested Bharat Rashtra Samiti leader K Kavitha after an hours-long raid at her premises in Hyderabad and brought her to Delhi for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, agency sources said.
He is the fourth chief minister from the saffron party to head the northern state. Before Adityanath, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh of the BJP had served as Uttar Pradesh chief ministers.
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.
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