'More than 9.5% new voters have been added to the electoral voters' list compared to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.' 'This led to an increase in about 5% to 6% in total votes polled for this assembly election.' 'That has tilted hugely in our favour because we worked hard for registration of these voters and concentrated on bringing out these new voters out during this assembly election.'
This is the fourth year of drought in Marathwada in the past five years. Each of its 8,522 villages have been affected for two consecutive years.
The Maharashtra legislative council on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution to rename seven stations on the Mumbai local train network.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
"Shreehari Aney has submitted his resignation to the governor. Whether to accept it or not, is his (governor's) prerogative," an official from the governor's office said.
Jarange is a strident critic of the senior BJP leader and has routinely accused him of being the main obstacle in the Maratha community's quest for reservations.
A class 5 girl student died of heat stroke on Tuesday after repeated trips to nearest hand pump in drought-hit Beed district of Maharashtra.
'This is what you get when you decide to be someone's slaves'
The highest farmer suicides have been reported from Beed district
The Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday decided that Kunbi caste certificates will be issued to those Marathas hailing from the Marathwada region who possess revenue or education documents from the Nizam era that recognise them as Kunbis, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said.
'If you look at the average age of all our candidates, you will notice that their average age is between 35 and 40. It is a kind of revolution that the MNS is bringing in Maharashtra.'
The Maharashtra minister alleged that Muslim voters were convinced that Uddhav Thackeray had "forsaken" Hindutva ideologies and the ideals of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray which led to them coming together to help the Congress and Shiv Sena-UBT candidates.
'There are legions of unemployed degree holders across rural and semi-urban belts in Maharashtra. Now, they aren't finding brides.' 'This issue has now snowballed into a social crisis. In 2014 and 2019, they had voted for the BJP.'
'The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months.'
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Maratha quota protester Manoj Jarange, who has been on a hunger strike in Maharashtra's Jalna district, said on Thursday that their agitation will continue till the state relaxes the condition of genealogy while giving Kunbi caste certificate to the community members from the Marathwada region.
Taking a dig at Narendra Modi for his poll campaign in north eastern states, the Shiv Sena on Monday said the prime minister should have taken out time to visit drought-hit Marathwada as well.
The BJP has again fielded Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar who humbled Ashok Chavan in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by over 40,000 votes.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a Zilla Parishad school teacher from Latur in Maharashtra and registered a case against four persons after it emerged that a racket was being operated to help NEET students willing to pay money to crack the exam, police said on Monday.
After former Shiv Sena MP Pradeep Jaiswal, ex-MLA of BJP from Latur, Shivaji Patil Kavekar, has resigned from the party with his supporters. Similar revolts had been reported from Nanded, Beed and Hingoli districts also.
The Maharashtra government is pushing hard to get a Rs 4,500-crore financial package from Centre, reports Sanjay Jog
Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad, is among the eight districts that comprise the state's Marathwada region, where activist Manoj Jarange has led an agitation demanding reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs.
The decision comes a day after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said a government-appointed committee scrutinised 1.72 crore old documents (including those of Nizam-era) and among them, 11,530 records were found where Kunbi caste was mentioned.
The development comes in the wake of an indefinite hunger strike launched by activist Manoj Jarange in Jalna district on Wednesday to demand reservation for the Maratha community.
Any long dry spell could cause moisture stress in the standing crop during the crucial maturing stage and also make it prone to pest and disease attacks.
Ten to 20 days of heatwave are expected against the normal of four to eight days in the entire April-June period.
The MNS joining the BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra could help it with a 'Thackeray versus Thackeray' narrative, fielding Raj Thackeray, an articulate speaker, to take on his cousin Uddhav Thackeray.
Temperatures in 17 locations breached 48 degrees Celsius on Monday, with the relentless heat affecting health and livelihoods across large parts of northwestern and central India.
Heatwave conditions have been prevailing in Odisha since April 15 and the Gangetic West Bengal since April 17, according to the MeT department.
Congress candidate Ashok Chavan, BJP's Gopinath Munde, NCP's Padmasinh Patil and All India Youth Congress chief Rajeev Satav cash in on their charisma and image. Sanjay Jog
The death toll in rain-related incidents in Marathwada region of Maharashtra has risen to 52, with 18 more people killed by lightning, officials said in Aurangabad on Thursday.
Lakhs of voters will have to bear the searing heat when they step out to exercise their franchise in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
Later in the afternoon, he also said that he was planning to hold a rally of the Maratha community at the protest site on October 12. "It will be attended by all the Marathas. It will show our plight and disappointment.... I will continue my protest here and will not even see the faces of my children till then," he said.
Intense heat swept through east India and parts of the southern peninsular region on Thursday, testing power grids and prompting the Kerala government to order closure of educational institutions till May 6.
Amid a fresh wave of protests in Maharashtra over the Maratha quota demand, authorities in Dharashiv district of the state on Wednesday started distributing Kunbi caste certificates to the eligible Maratha community members, paving the way for their inclusion in the OBC category.
Most farmers want to give Modi a second chance. They hope that the BJP loses at least 50 seats, so that it is dependent on its coalition partners who will then keep a check on Modi.
There is a growing unease among Lok Sabha ticket aspirants in the Shiv Sena amid its decision to drop three sitting MPs and the ongoing seat-sharing talks between the Mahayuti partners, party sources said.
Jarange had also claimed that a poisoning attempt was made against him through saline, though he did not elaborate on it.
Fasting quota activist Manoj Jarange on Monday sought reservation for the Maratha community in entire Maharashtra and not in specific regions and warned the ongoing agitation will be ratcheted up if the demand was not fulfilled by the state government.
Quota activist Manoj Jarange has announced that he will start an indefinite hunger strike at Azad Maidan in Mumbai from January 20 to intensify his demand of reservation for the Maratha community.
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