Thackeray and Pawar held parleys at a suburban hotel ahead of the 7.30 pm deadline set by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for the Sena to stake claim for government formation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he wants the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to win 400 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls to ensure the Congress does not bring back Article 370 in Kashmir and put a 'Babri lock' on the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Amid a brewing political storm in Bihar, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal on Monday said it was ready to "embrace" Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal-United if he broke ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Alva, 80, would file her nomination papers on Tuesday, July 19 which is the last date for filing nominations for the August 6 election.
The former Congress president also tagged a post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.
BJP ally RPI on Monday spoke out against the de-recognition of an IIT-M students' body allegedly for being critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Consensus eluded an all-party meeting called on FDI issue on Monday even as Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party provided comfort to the government by not insisting on voting and Trinamool Congress springing a surprise by speaking in a similar tone.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stating that long-standing ties with its saffron ally have been normalised, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party chief Rajnath Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi have assured him that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will not be included in the 'mahayuti' (grand alliance).
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
As the Opposition on Wednesday held its first meeting on the presidential election, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice for the top constitutional post with senior party leader Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Naveen Patnaik, sources said.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Friday claimed that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had 'begged for forgiveness for past betrayals' before his parents, party supremo Lalu Prasad and ex-CM Rabri Devi, before they allied with the Janata Dal-United president in 2022.
'I am in the NDA as of now,' Kushwaha said.
It is early to make out which way the wind is blowing, but there is no denying that challenges for the BJP, far outweigh the advantages in this region, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, visited Thackeray's residence 'Matoshree' and held a close-door meeting, which started around 10 am and lasted for nearly 75 minutes.
At 79, Zoramthanga is working to rebuild his image as the people's CM.
"Very shortly we will come out with a concrete plan," Rao told reporters after meeting the Trinamool Congress president.
Former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari on Monday met Raj Thackeray in Mumbai, triggering speculation that the saffron party is trying to win over the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief into the National Democratic Alliance for the upcoming elections even as he said there is no reason for Shiv Sena to be annoyed by his meeting with Raj.
Consultations within the Bharatiya Janata Party on government formation gained momentum on Friday with Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi holding a long meeting with party chief Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
While the relation between the LJP and the JD-U has long been far from smooth, Manjhi's entry in the NDA has added to its pique against the JD-U.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday insisted that nothing much should be read into his recent meeting with an MP of the Lok Janshakti Party, which is headed by his bete noire Chirag Paswan, since members of Parliament and the state legislature call on him regularly over matters relating to their constituencies.
At the meeting attended by 33 parties, the prime minister said suggestions from public representatives, especially from the Opposition, are valuable as they make the discussion rich.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The SP chief said, "If the Congress behaves like this, who will stand with them."
'Re-issuing ordinances is against convention. Courts have said that re-promulgation of an ordinance is against the Constitution.'
Allies since the 1990s, the JD-U and the BJP have in the recent past squabbled on issues ranging from Agnipath, caste census, population law and ban on loudspeakers.
Already, there is a feeling even within the BJP's AIADMK ally that the BJP is overdoing things on the ED/I-T front, as corruption is not an election issue in the state -- as long as the people are otherwise not excessively unhappy with the governing party, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Mayawati appeared to be opting for a wait-and watch-policy till the Lok Sabha election results are announced on May 23.
She expressed confidence that a three-way alliance is very much possible in West Bengal between her Trinamool Congress, Congress and the Left.
With the rift between the two National Democratic Alliance allies widening, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nitin Gadkari and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi today met Janata Dal-United President Sharad Yadav, who said efforts are being made to rectify the situation that has taken a "bad shape".
Conceding that the RJS is the "big brother" in Bihar, the Congress said that Rahul was "the face of anti-NDA forces" in the country.
The Sena also said that forming a partnershipwith the BJP means "killing your own freedom of janadhar."
As he snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar's caretaker chief minister Nitish Kumar has once again been pitched as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 elections by some, but a majority of the Opposition still view the Janata Dal-United leader with suspicion citing his numerous 'U-turns'.
Centre's disinvestment policy Saturday came in for sharp criticism from some States with BJP ally Biju Janata Dal in Orissa going so far as to seek a separate National Democratic Alliance meeting on it.
Kovind spoke to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over phone and thanked him for supporting his candidature.
