Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis defended the state education minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Vinod Tawde, who is caught up in a row over his educational qualification.
Eknath Shinde has been made chief minister to crush the Shiv Sena totally, completely, wholly, point out Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
Speaking at a rally at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Saturday, Raj Thackeray had criticised Sharad Pawar, accusing him of 'playing the caste card from time to time and dividing society'.
The proposal is currently with the finance department and is expected to be placed before the Cabinet in the coming days.
Referring to differences between Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Governor B S Koshyari over various issues, the Bombay high court on said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that the two highest constitutional functionaries in the state "did not trust each other".
Earlier, there were speculations that the party may nominate Pankaja Munde, the daughter of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, for the MLC polls, to be held on June 20.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa looks all set to score a hattrick in the coastal state with the support of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, as vote counting trends of the February 14 elections indicated the BJP missing the majority mark by a whisker.
A statement from Raj Bhavan said that Koshyari requested the ECI to declare elections to the nine vacant seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council 'at the earliest'. The state cabinet had on April 9 recommended Thackeray's nomination as one of the governor nominees in the Legislative Council.
'At the moment the anti-defection law works only in favour of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, the original Shiv Sena.' 'The Eknath Shinde camp is at a disadvantage unless they merge with another political party.' 'Otherwise, they will not be saved (from being disqualified).'
The Shiv Sena chief will be the first from the Thackeray family to be sworn in as the chief minister.
Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday reached out to the functionaries of his party, which is currently battling a rebellion, and sought to allay fears surrounding the survival of his political outfit and the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
It's a major victory for the farmers who trekked 180 km from Nashik over six days under the blazing sun, some even barefooted.
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.
The government would extend to the Maratha community the educational concessions given to OBCs.
Thackeray spoke to Modi on phone and told him that attempts were being made to create political instability in the state, sources told PTI. "Political instability in a huge state like Maharashtra when it is facing the COVID-19 crisis is not right and Thackeray urged the PM to look into it," they said.
As per a letter sent to the MLAs by the assembly secretariat, the chief minister has expressed his willingness to move a motion of confidence to prove his majority.
Thackeray, who is currently not a member of either of the Houses of state Legislature, was not present at the Cabinet meeting where the decision was taken.
Sharad Pawar will attend a meeting of the NCP legislature party at 4 pm on Friday, party sources said on Thursday.
Apart from Thackeray, Council Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena), four candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party -- Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad; Nationalist Congress Party's Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari and Congress's Rajesh Rathod were in the fray for the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24.
The chief minister, who is currently not a member of either of the Houses of the state Legislature, submitted his nomination papers to the election officer in Mumbai.
'When I felt that the party is drifting away from Hindutva, I tried to speak to Uddhavji. But nobody was ready to listen.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was 'putting pressure' on him to 'frame' the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi in an alleged fake encounter case in Gujarat when he was being questioned by the probe agency during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
The MLAs of the three ruling parties and the BJP have reached Mumbai ahead of the elections.
Making the announcement, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said this was the "biggest" loan waiver scheme in the country.
Chief Minister designate Ashok Chavan on Friday met Governor S C Jamir and staked claim to form the next government, 15 days after the Congress-NCP haggled over the portfolio issue.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the home ministry's protection largesse.
Congress leaders A R Antulay, Vasantdada Patil, Shivajirao Nilangekar-Patil, Shankarrao Chavan, Sushilkumar Shinde and Prithviraj Chavan are among the leaders who were not members of any of the state legislature Houses when they occupied the top post.
After being outwitted by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the ruling Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is now facing another challenge of getting all its six candidates elected to the state Legislative Council in the June 20 polls, which has once again put the spotlight on Independents and smaller parties.
After an acrimonious split, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena are together again with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday announcing that Sena will be joining his government on Friday 'in keeping with the mandate' and will get 12 ministerial berths but there will be no deputy CM.
Thackeray said lockdown has been partially eased because economic activities need to continue as 'now we have to learn to live with the virus'.
A special court in Mumbai on Wednesday reserved till Thursday its order on the bail pleas of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and state minister Nawab Malik seeking the one-day relief to cast their votes in the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.
'Can we slip through the cracks in the alliance and use the situation to our advantage?'
'There is no hard evidence, but our MLAs have been getting calls from industrialists and mining mafia in the state to quit the Congress and join the BJP.'
The Shiv Sena has decided to move its MLAs to a luxury hotel at Powai in northeast Mumbai ahead of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, a party leader said on Friday, as the ruling coalition spearhead treads a cautious path after being outsmarted by the BJP in the last week's Rajya Sabha polls.
The Maharashtra government on Wednesday announced one-rank promotion for 14 policemen, who displayed "historic valour" during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to capture terrorist Ajmal Kasab. Home Minister Anil Deshmukh made the announcement while speaking to reporters outside the state legislature in Mumbai.
He dubbed the rumours of 'alternate formulae' being worked out to form the state government as 'entertainment'.
The poster came up on the eve of swearing-in of Sena president and the Aghadi nominee Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai.
The petitioners challenging a Tamil Nadu law allowing bull-taming sport Jallikattu argued in the Supreme Court on Tuesday that when the law prohibits cruelty to animals there cannot be an amending Act which perpetuates cruelty.
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.
