THE Congress and NCP said on Tuesday evening that they had yet not taken any decision about supporting the Shiv Sena to form Government in Maharashtra but will hold further discussions. At a joint press conference with Congress leaders, NCP President Sharad Pawar said the two parties will discuss and evolve a consensus on what should be the policies and programmes if the Shiv Sena was to be supported...

WELCOMING the Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said the trust that will be responsible for the construction of a Ram temple would have to be considerate about keeping people united...

THE Shiv Sena MLAs on Thursday authorised party chief Uddhav Thackeray to take a “final decision” on Government formation in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, Thackeray said, he did not intend to end the alliance with the BJP but only wanted implementation of what was agreed upon before the polls. He said, BJP should approach him only if it is ready to give Sena CM’s post. Thackeray chaired a meeting of all party MLAs at his residence ‘Matoshree’ in suburban Bandra, where the legislators also reiterated that ..

SENIOR leaders of Maharashtra BJP on Thursday met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to discuss “legal aspects” of the delay in formation of a Government in the State after the October 21 elections. Those who met Koshyari included Minister and State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil and Ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar and Girish Mahajan...

SHIV Sena Ministers on Wednesday attended a Cabinet meeting over the agrarian crisis in the State, chaired by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis here at Sahyadri State Guest House. Six Shiv Sena ministers including Eknath Shinde and Ramdas Kadam were present. Fadnavis had visited areas affected by unseasonal rain to take a stock of the situation. Rains have caused havoc in several parts of Maharashtra, laying waste to standing Kharif crop on around 70 lakh hectares. The meeting, attended ..

THE responsibility of forming the Government in Maharashtra is with the BJP, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on Monday after meeting Congress chief Sonia Gandhi here. Amidst reports that Uddhav Thackeray’s party was in touch with the NCP, Pawar said that the Shiv Sena has not sought any support from his party to form the Government, but asserted that he can’t say “what will happen” in the future...

DEVENDRA Fadnavis was on Wednesday elected as the leader of BJP legislative party. Amid the ongoing tussle between the BJP and Shiv Sena over power sharing in State, Fadnavis asserted that the alliance partners will form Government soon, after Shiv Sena softened its stand. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar attended the meeting as the central observer of the party...

THE Haryana Cabinet will be expanded after the Assembly’s special session from November 4 and a committee comprising leaders of both the BJP and the JJP set up to formulate a common minimum programme for the coalition, Chief Minister M L Khattar said on Tuesday. Khattar, who is in the national capital along with Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, held his first Cabinet meeting at the Haryana Bhawan here...

WHILE the ally Shiv Sena is demanding equal share in power, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday stressed that the BJP was the single largest party, and said the “BJPled alliance” will provide a stable Government. The process of Government formation will start after Diwali, Fadnavis said, addressing party workers at a Diwali gathering here...

THE Congress’ top brass on Friday met under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi to deliberate on issues related to the interests of India’s farmers, shopkeepers and the industry which the party claimed were being “bartered away and sold openly” by the BJP Government. A 17-member group of leaders, set up by Sonia Gandhi which includes former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi besides other top leaders, met at her 10 Janpath residence to hold discussions on key issues facing the country. The ..

FORMER Maharashtra deputy Chief Ministerand NCP leader Ajit Pawar on Thursday won from the Baramati Assembly constituency by defeating his nearest rival byover 1.65 lakhvotes - thehighest victory margin recorded by a candidate in this election. On the other hand, Shiv Sena candidate Dilip Bhausaheb Lande won from the Chandivali constituency in north Mumbai by just 409 votes - the lowest victory margin posted by a nominee in the elections held on October 21. Ajit Pawar won the seat in Pune district ..

FIVE months after its landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP onThursday won 17 Assembly seats in the bypolls held in 51 Assembly constituencies across 18 States. The Congress bagged 11 seats in byelections held on October 21. In Uttar Pradesh, where by-elections were held for 11 Assembly seats, the BJP won 7, its ally Apna Dal got 1, and the Samajwadi Party won 3 seats. The ruling BJP won the Gangoh, Iglas, Lucknow Cantt, ..

SHIV Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray, who made history by becoming the first member of his family to take poll plunge, has marked his arrival in Maharashtra politics with a bang and is likely to play a key role in the next State Government and help expand his party. The 29-year-old next-gen Thackeray, whom his party wants to be the Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-SenaallianceGovernment,wonwitha thumping majority from Mumbai’s Worli constituency...

THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared set to retain power with a bigger mandate in Maharashtra, where it is in alliance with the Shiv Sena, and Haryana, as Exit Polls forecast a facile victory for the party in the two States and rout for its rivals led by the Congress. Exit Polls, broadcast soon after the polling ended, varied widely in their projection of seats for the rival alliances but an emphatic victory with more than two-third seats for the BJP-led NDA in Maharashtra and Haryana was their ..

FIVE people have been detained including three in Gujarat’s Surat in connection with the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari, the President of a little-known Hindu outfit, with police saying on Saturday that the suspects were ‘radicalised’ and appeared to have targeted him for his inflammatory remarks made in 2015. “So far, there is no terror angle associated with this incident,” Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police DGP O P Singh said at a press conference here..

THE entire world can see the new-found confidence of New India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. Addressing BJP’s campaign rallies for the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly elections at Pune, Satara and Parli, Modi also said that despite a lot of talk in the last 70 years, it was only his Government which dared abrogate Article 370. “The entire world can see the new-found confidence of New India. Everyone can feel the change. They are discussing Howdy Modi (event in the US),” Modi said ..

THE Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel in connection with its money laundering probe linked to alleged illegal assets of late Iqbal Mirchi, an aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, officials said on Tuesday. They said Patel, a former Union Minister in the UPA regime, has been asked to depose in Mumbai on October 18...

  MUMBAI :   TAKING a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said the speeches made by the former will eventually help the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance win more votes in Assembly elections. Speaking at a rally at Pusad in Yavatmal district, the Chief Minister said Gandhi joined the campaign “unwillingly” in view of Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s remarks. Khurshid had said the Congress had failed to carry out a detailed ..

IN THE run-up to the October 21 Assembly elections, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday blamed NCP supremo and former Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his policies for farmer suicides in the state. Speaking at a rally in Akot tehsil in Akola district in Vidarbha region, Fadnavis termed the issue as Pawar’s “sin”...

DETENTION of all political leaders in Jammu has been ended but their counterparts in Kashmir continue to be under house arrest. The leaders from political parties like National Conference (NC), Congress and Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) have been freed in Jammu. They were put under preventive detention since August 5 when the Centre revoked special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370. NC leaders Devender Rana and SS Salathia, Congress’ Raman Bhalla and Panthers ..

THE BJP and Shiv Sena have finalised the seat-sharing deal for the Maharashtra Assembly elections 2019, senior State Bharatiya Janata Party Minister Chandrakant Patil said here on Monday. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will announce the quantum of seat sharing, Patil told reporters...

THE Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Congress on Thursday met for a second time to select candidates for the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly polls and is learnt to have finalised nominees in about 100 constituencies so far. The CEC, at its meeting a few days ago, had given clearance to about 65 candidates while on Thursday, consensus was reached on over 30 names, sources said. After the CEC meeting, MPCC president Balasaheb Thorat said that the names for 45 seats sent by the screening committee ..

WEST Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday told Union Home Minister Amit Shah that genuine Indians belonging to Bengali, Bihari, Gorkha and Assamese communities were excluded from the NRC in Assam and sought his intervention to ameliorate their miseries. This was conveyed by Banerjee to Shah in her first meeting with the Home Minister, who assumed the office about three months ago. “I have come to meet the Home Minister to discuss about the NRC in Assam and told him that many genuine Indians ..

IN A setback to Mayawati, all six BSP MLAs in Rajasthan have defected to the ruling Congress, a move dubbed by the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister as a “betrayal.” The development comes ahead of civic body polls and bypolls for two Assembly seats in Rajasthan and has increased the tally of the Congress in the 200-member Assembly ..

  NEW DELHI :   A Rs 150 crore worth hotel in a prime business space of Gurgaon has been attached by the Income-Tax department, considering it as a “benami” asset of Haryana Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi and his brother. They said the department’s Delhi-based anti-benami unit has issued an order for attachment of the hotel property under Section 24(3) of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988. The hotel, as per the order accessed by PTI, is ..

 By Zaffar Iqbal  SRINAGAR :  THE Government has opened up channels of communication with former Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, who were arrested ahead of the scrapping of Article 370 earlier this month. Highly placed official sources said a team comprising members of different Central agencies met with two leaders in Srinagar to allow their release on ‘certain conditions’.  The Government wants to release the mainstream ..

  NEW DELHI:  FORMER Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti on Monday reacted angrily to the Centre scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution providing special status to the State and bifurcating it, saying the “disastrous” move may lead to “catastrophic consequences”. Senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ram Madhav and several other BJP leaders, however, welcomed the Union government’s decision calling it a “bold ..

BENGALURUKARNATAKA caretaker Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said on Thursday that no one can give a stable Government in the State in the present political scene after the fall of his Ministry two days ago. Kumaraswamy said the resignations by the rebel MLAs of the Congress-JD(S) coalition had pushed the State towards by-elections.“Whether you focus on the developmental activities or the by-elections at 20 to 25 places, an atmosphere created by theBJP? We cannot assume that the Government will ..

 BENGALURU: KARNATAKA BJP President B S Yeddyurappa on Wednesday said that he was awaiting instructions from his party central leadership on staking claim to form an alternative Government in the State. The 14-month old Congress-JD(S) coalition Government headed by H D Kumaraswamy collapsed on Tuesday night after losing vote of confidence in the Assembly in a climax to three-week long intense power struggle. “I’m awaiting instructions from Delhi.  I can call legislature ..

 BENGALURU: THE fate of the fragile H D Kumaraswamy led Congress-JDS coalition Government in Karnataka is likely to be decided on the floor of the Assembly on Monday after it defied on July 19 the two deadlines set by Governor Vajubhai Vala to prove majority after the Ministry was wracked by a raft of resignations by rebel MLAs. Amid reports that the Government was still trying to prolong the discussion on the confidence motion moved by the Chief Minister on Thursday, hoping for some kind ..

ENVIRONMENT Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said in the Rajya Sabha that there is variable impact of climate change on crop production and efforts are being made to develop drought and flood tolerant seed varieties...

  BENGALURU: AS the Government in Karnataka faces an existential crisis with the resignation of 16 legislators of the ruling coalition, the State Cabinet that met on Thursday resolved to face the situation “bravely” and “withstand” it unitedly. Expressing confidence that the Government would survive, the Cabinet that met under the leadership of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said it was ready to face a no-confidence motion, if moved by the Opposition BJP.  “..

 KOLKATA: WEST Bengal Congress President Somen Mitra submitted a letter of resignation from the post taking responsibility for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha election, according to a press statement released on Tuesday. However, Gaurav Gogoi, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of party affairs in the State, refused to accept Mitra’s resignation and requested him to continue in the post, party sources said. The Congress won two of the 42 Lok Sabha seats ..

 JAMMU:  SENIOR Congress leader Mohammad Iqbal Malik, along with a dozen of party activists, joined the BJP on Monday, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ has infused a sense of security among the minorities. Malik, hailing from Darhal constituency in Rajouri, resigned from the basic membership of the Congress on Saturday after remaining affiliated with the party for over a decade. He unsuccessfully contested State elections twice ..

 (left) Anand Kumar (right) Akash Anand  LUCKNOW: BAHUJAN Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday appointed her brother Anand Kumar as the party’s national Vice President and her nephew Akash Anand as its national coordinator, a senior leader said. She also appointed BSP leader Ramji Gautam as the party’s national coordinator. The decision was taken at a meeting here which was attended by top functionaries of the party. Amroha MP Danish Ali has been made the leader ..