Chhagan Bhujbal, Jayant Patil (both from the NCP), Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut (both from the Congress), Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai (both from the Sena) took oath as ministers along with Thackeray.
On Tuesday, Mandaviya had written to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot asking them to strictly follow the COVID-19 guidelines during the party's Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The ED had attached Sai Resort NX, constructed over the land located at Gut no: 446, Murud in Ratnagiri's Dapoli, in January.
'...a more capable State -- one that operates with greater capacity, greater efficiency, and greater clarity of purpose.' 'But I also see a more despotic State -- one that places more constraints on speech, assembly, dissent, and critique.' 'It may run 'better', but on the regime's rules.'
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.
According to sources in the Congress, eight legislators are likely to be sworn in as ministers along with them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's bypoll win in four of the six seats it contested has invigorated the party ahead of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
The resignation also signals a continuing saga of unaddressed concerns of young leaders, once considered close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
Speaking to reporters in Thane, Pawar accused the Narendra Modi government of failing to fulfil any of the promises made by it since 2014 including bringing 'acche din, connecting villages through the internet, and providing toilets, water, and power to every household'.
The government was formed 10 days after Shinde raised a banner of revolt against the Shiv Sena leadership. Forty out of 55 Sena MLAs sided with Shinde, which resulted in the collapse of the two-and-a-half-year-old Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation comprising the Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
While 7,500 of the 7,880 candidates allegedly tampered with the results in the exchange for money to show themselves "eligible" in the results of the final exam, 293 candidates secured forged/fake certificates projecting themselves as eligible candidates after the final results.
The case of the two Shiv Sena factions for legitimacy and the party symbol, 'Bow and Arrow', is now before the Election Commission. Whichever way the EC findings go, the other can be expected to move the Supreme Court. They would need a final verdict before the parliamentary polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
A faction of Congress believes that that decision of the NCP benefitted the BJP which won 122 seats and staked a claim for power.
'Even if we have laws in place, which we must, we need a societal change.' 'Rather than telling our daughters that, "Listen, leave your house at so and so time, come back by so and so time," we must tell the men and boys that "Whatever point of time you encounter a woman in public space or wherever, you treat her with respect, dignity, and as an equal participant in these public spaces".'
For now, the DMK can be expected to sound the bugle for Opposition unity at the national level, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
While the PM is trying to hardsell his developmental agenda, his rivals are targeting him in the run-up to the assembly election
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
Announcing a Re 1 crop insurance scheme for farmers, the deputy CM said the government will bear the financial burden of Rs 3,312 crore.
In a memorandum submitted to the EC, the INDIA party leaders submitted a list of recent instances of central agencies targeting Opposition parties and alleged an absence of a level playing field for the opposition.
'Switching loyalty from one party to another is completely unfair as it devalues my vote.'
'It is Maharashtra that started this fire.' 'Suddenly, out of nowhere, they started talking about the border dispute being sub judice and they started talking about meeting the people in Belagavi who want to break up our state.'
While political experts claim that the Modi Magic is missing in the 2024 general election, the common people in the street -- at least those in the crowd on Thursday -- vow that they will vote for Modi and the candidate who contests the election doesn't matter much.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
A local leader of Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray faction confirmed they painted the buses.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday continued to target late Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, saying that he helped the British rulers and wrote a mercy petition to them out of fear.
Mamata asserted that she has not spoken to anyone in the Congress on seat-sharing in the state for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
Kovind spoke to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray over phone and thanked him for supporting his candidature.
Barely days after imposing a 40 per cent export tax on onions to cool down soaring prices, which, in turn, triggered widespread protests across the main growing belts, the Centre on Tuesday sought to mitigate both political and economic tensions gripping parts of Maharashtra. It decided to procure an additional 200,000 tonnes of onions at Rs 2,410 per quintal for its buffer stock from farmers, a rate that is strikingly close to the price at which they were being exported before the 40 per cent duty was levied on August 19. The export price before the imposition of the duty stood at around $320 per tonne free on board (approximately Rs 2,650 per quintal).
The BJP has nothing to lose after a point. For the DMK it is a difficult choice, as it would not want to give too much of space to a 'national party' lest the 'Dravidian duel' of the past decades should be lost forever, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued fresh summons to Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut asking him to appear on July 1 for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the re-development of a Mumbai 'chawl' and other related financial transactions involving his wife and friends, officials said.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Founded in 1966 by Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena in its more than five decades long journey has allied with the Congress, formally and informally.
"We will keep an eye on the situation in Maharashtra. Congress and NCP leaders will hold further talks on the future course of action," he added.
'Look at the impropriety of the Anti-Corruption Bureau giving Ajit Pawar a clean chit!'
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.