The already-strained ties between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena further dipped on the eve of the union cabinet reshuffle with the Sena representative unlikely to make an entry at the Centre.
Two days before rebelling against uncle Sharad Pawar and joining the Maharashtra government last Sunday, Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar approached the Election Commission on June 30 staking claim to the party name as well as symbol and subsequently also declared himself as president with the support of 40 lawmakers, sources said.
Manish Sisodia is set to be Deputy CM, while four new faces are likely to join the AAP cabinet.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
The decision was taken to ensure the betterment of the state and the party in the days to come, senior leader Ratan Lal Nath told reporters shortly after Saha, the state BJP president, took oath as the new chief minister.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was on Wednesday sworn in for the eighth time, asserted that the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to 'worry' about its prospects in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Sushil said Nitish has insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the people of Bihar.
Extending its winning run in the south, the Congress on Sunday won 64 assembly seats to form government in the Bharat Rashtra Samiti-dominated Telangana, with the southern solace coming in the midst of a saffron sweep of the Hindi heartland where the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested two states from the grand old party and retained one.
'The party is breaking stereotypes by not inviting senior leaders to become chief ministers.' 'No other party has had the guts to do this.'
"I congratulate all the colleagues who have taken an oath today and wish them the very best for their ministerial tenure. We will continue working to fulfill the aspirations of the people and build a strong and prosperous India," the PM posted on Twitter.
On Friday, the 65-year-old Dalit leader was sworn-in as an Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar, who took oath as the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, on Sunday said his party decided to become part of the Eknath Shinde government for the development of the country, and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.
Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would be present at the function, a government spokesperson said.
The 46-year-old MP from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh was among the 15 new Cabinet ministers who took oath in the first major rejig and expansion of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government after it returned to power for a second term in May 2019.
Springing a surprise, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday picked Mohan Yadav, a leader of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and a three-time MLA, as the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, state party president VD Sharma said.
Four junior ministers - Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjiv Kumar Balyan, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahendra Nath Pandey - have resigned ahead of the rejig.
A new cabinet in the state will be in place in the next 48-72 hours.
Before the ceremony, Yogi Adityanath, who led the party to a thumping victory in the just-concluded elections, will be elected as the leader of the legislature party, party sources said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday expanded his two-member ministry, 41 days after taking oath as the CM.
In their first cabinet meeting held hours after coming to power, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis took the first step towards overturning the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government's decision of relocating the proposed Mumbai Metro Line-3 car shed from Aarey Colony.
'Politics is a game of public perception and my father felt that by his long disappearances, Rahul Gandhi was losing the battle of perception.'
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde on Friday said not only his colleagues in the assembly but also Maharashtra is happy that 'Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sainik has become the chief minister'.
Ravi, shifted from Nagaland, said he saw his new role more as an opportunity than a challenge.
Pawar, who was also the deputy CM in the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which was in power from November 2019 to June 2022, enjoys the image of a grassroot leader and an able administrator.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar -- contesting on a Congress ticket hoping to reclaim his lost self-respect-- still has photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah hanging on a wall in his home-office and says it is not good to remove them.
The BJP is soon likely to announce new positions for the senior former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar, sources said.
Several Union ministers, including Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar resigned.
At 45, Dhami takes over as the youngest chief minister of Uttarakhand.
Shinde was sworn-in as the chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy CM on June 30. The swearing-in ceremony will be held at Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai at 11 am, an official said.
The 36 new ministers included 10 cabinet and four ministers of state (MoS) of the NCP, eight Cabinet and four MoS of the Sena, and eight Cabinet and two MoS of the Congress.
'You know how politics is. You never know what will happen the next moment.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP leaders will attend the oath-taking ceremony of Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister of Haryana at Panchkula on Sunday.
'The cousins do not have a good rapport with each other in politics, though they may be having a good rapport with each other in family life.'
Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narvekar will likely disqualify the 16 Shiv Sena MLAs, including Eknath Shinde, who will then be asked to resign as chief minister. 'Once this is done, Ajit dada will be sworn in chief minister.'
We shall be taking oath at the Raj Bhavan, tomorrow, around 4-4.30 pm, Kumar siad.
Fifteen ministers took the oath in Rajasthan on Sunday in a cabinet expansion that included 12 new faces, fulfilling a key demand of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot whose rebellion last year shook the state's Congress government.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
At 38, Akhilesh is the youngest chief minister of India's most populous state.
