Shiv Sena's Kolhapur district president Sanjay Pawar will be its second candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls, party chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut said on Tuesday, in what is a clear snub to Chhatrapati Sambhaji who was seeking support for his candidature.
Karim Lala was one of the three top underworld dons of Mumbai for over two decades, from the sixties to the early eighties, the other two being Mastan Mirza alias Haji Mastan and Varadarajan Mudaliar.
Political sources say Modi is 'keen' on getting the NCP (SP) over to the Mahayuti to counter Eknath Shinde's 'demands' and to act as a cushion against his present allies, Nitish Kumar and N Chandrababu Naidu, 'in case their relationship became untenable'.
Why is the police action being questioned, the Rajya Sabha MP asked.
The future of this alliance would depend on the sacrifice and liberality of the Congress, he said.
Raut also said the "ongoing Mahabharat" in West Bengal is more fierce than the real Mahabharat.
Is a sulking Eknath Shinde on the way out as Shiv Sena chief?
Raut said such friendly fights should happen on all 48 seats in Maharashtra as well as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
'The CM's credibility is on the line.'
There is no record of Hridaynath Mangeshkar being sacked by the AIR, Raut said.
Senior RSS leader Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi's call to drop the Aurangzeb tomb controversy challenges decades of communal rhetoric in Maharashtra, igniting hopes for unity and a balanced historical narrative.
'My meeting with Raut had no political connotations. He asked me for an interview to Saamana, to which I agreed'
Speaking to reporters, Raut said, "A special Parliament session should be held. I am demanding this because I have been holding discussons with several prominent leaders since yesterday over the COVID-19 situation in various states. All the leaders accepted that the situation in their states is tense and is going out of control. Only pyres are burning everywhere. There is no space left in cemeteries. It's nothing but total chaos."
Apart from Urmila Matondkar, the names of Marathi actor and Shiv Sena leader Aadesh Bandekar, singer Anand Shinde, BJP-turned-NCP leader Eknath Khadse, farmer leader Raju Shetti are also doing rounds.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday hit out at the BJP for opposing Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's directive to state police to keep a record of migrants coming here from other states, claiming the BJP was raking up the 'outsider' card with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly and Mumbai civic elections due next year.
The disclosure by Chhagan Bhujbal that he resigned as a minister last November has put a focus on the Maratha quota tightrope the Eknath Shinde-led government is walking amid restlessness in OBCs, with Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray claiming Bhujbal and the Bharatiya Janata Party are hand in glove.
Mumbai Bharatiya Janata Party chief Ashish Shelar attacked the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi ahead of his upcoming visit to Maharashtra and sought an apology for his remarks on 'reservation ' and 'Veer Savarkar'.
Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said the Ladki Bahin scheme, women's participation in voting in large numbers, and religious polarisation may have played a role in Mahayuti's victory in Maharashtra assembly polls.
Maharashtra BJP chief spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said there was no political angle to the meeting. "Raut wanted to interview Fadnavis for (the Sena mouthpiece) Saamana and this meeting was to discuss how to go about it," he tweeted.
'Their conduct is as if they have come to arrest some dacoit.' 'They behave with everyone in this manner, whether it's Manish Sisodia, Anil Deshmukh or anybody else.' 'It is as if they are ambassadors of god and we are satans.' 'This is solely due to the sections in some laws like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.' 'This is a cruel law. In fact, the death penalty is better.'
Sanjay Raut, a key leader of the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, on Monday claimed that Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has expressed the desire to quit after the Shiv Sena (UBT) gave a call for a statewide bandh to protest his "insult" to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, a claim refuted by the Raj Bhavan.
"This whole incident of Waze's activities and controversies thereafter taught a lesson to the MVA government. It was good in a way that it happened and taught us some lessons," the Sena's chief spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Congress leaders met party chief Sonia Gandhi amid talks in state political circle about possibility of the Shiv Sena forming government in Maharashtra backed by opposition parties.
'They tell us that we have kept our women in the front. Only the lionesses have come out and you are already sweating. You can understand what would happen if all of us come together'
Ranaut filed a plea in the high court on September 9, seeking that the court declare the demolition of a part of her bungalow in Pali Hill area here by the BMC as illegal. She subsequently amended her plea to demand Rs 2 crore as damages from the civic body and its officials for the demolition.
The Bombay high court on Thursday asked Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut to file a reply to actor Kangana Ranaut's petition against the demolition of a part of her bungalow in Mumbai, and said it will start final hearing from Friday.
Shiv Sena-UBT MP Sanjay Raut said Devendra Fadnavis was not eligible to head the Maharashtra home department.
The cartoon, posted by Raut on his verified Twitter account, shows a tiger (Shiv Sena's party symbol) wearing a clock locket (Nationalist Congress Party's symbol) sniffing a lotus (BJP's party symbol).
The Mumbai police have registered an FIR against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra for allegedly making defamatory remarks against Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde during a show. The police also registered a case against nearly 40 Shiv Sena workers for allegedly vandalizing the studio where Kamra's show was filmed. The incident took place after a video went viral showing Kamra allegedly using defamatory words against Shinde. Shiv Sena MLA Murji Patel lodged a police complaint, leading to the FIR against Kamra under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including for statements conducing to public mischief and defamation. Meanwhile, the Khar police registered an FIR against 19 Shiv Sena functionaries, including Rahul Kanal (Yuva Sena), Vibhag Pramukh Kunal Sarmarkar and Akshay Panvelkar, for vandalizing the studio and the hotel premises. The incident has sparked controversy, with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray condemning the vandalism and questioning the state's law and order situation.
Hundreds of Muslim women on Friday protested against the Sena mouthpiece.
Lok Sabha polls held over 5 phases so why hold assembly elections in single phase, asks Oppn.
The 57-year-old Rajya Sabha member and Shiv Sena's spokesperson, who underwent an angioplasty procedure on Monday, has been tweeting from his hospital bed over the current political situation in Maharashtra.
"The majority is very thin and anything can happen. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party -- JD-U finished third and if anyone is celebrating the win, it's a joke. The BJP has done well, for which it had to do a lot of political strategising," he said.
The Election Commission is learnt to have given the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena 15 more days to submit documents in support of its claim on the party's election symbol.
Latching on to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remark that the threat of COVID-19 still persists, Raut said in view of the health concern, it is Thackeray's responsibility to take care of people's safety, and the governor should have rather appreciated the chief minister for doing so diligently.
The former CM is expected to sound the poll bugle for next year's Lok Sabha elections with the convention and rally.
The Shiv Sena has plans to field 50 to 100 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, including in Ayodhya and Mathura and made it clear that the party will not be part of any alliance.
Opposition parties in India, including the Congress, Left parties, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (SP), have unanimously hailed the armed forces' "Operation Sindoor", a retaliatory strike against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The operation, which involved missile and drone strikes, was conducted in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack. Despite political differences, all parties expressed support for the government and the armed forces, stressing the importance of national unity and integrity in the face of terrorism. While emphasizing the need for diplomatic avenues to prevent further escalation, some parties also called for caution in attributing political credit for the strikes.
Discordant voices emerged on Sunday from the Mahayuti even as the alliance continued to remain in the throes of government formation more than week after it swept the Maharashtra assembly polls.
What some of our leaders were up to on Tuesday.