'Like me there are crores of Marathi people in the state hoping for this miracle to work.'
State BJP minister Chandrakant Patil last week said Harshvardhan Patil will regret his decision to join the Pawar-led party.
'We pressurised him (to accept the deputy chief ministership).' 'Being out of power would have made him weaker.'
Warning that both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party would be losers in the Maharashtra assembly elections without a poll pact, the Sharad Pawar-led party on Thursday warned that 'time was running out fast', with clouds of uncertainty hovering over the 10-year-old alliance.Though favouring an alliance, the NCP said it was prepared to contest all 288 assembly seats on its own.
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.
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has credited late Congress leader Vilasrao Deshmukh with having proper understanding and maturity to lead a coalition government in Maharashtra, and said he had doubts on the capability of Prithviraj Chavan under whose leadership the Congress-NCP alliance lost power to the BJP in 2014 after ruling for 15 years.
Any move of the present government to appease the Marathas may boomerang. Eknath Shinde is a worried man with the agitation not having an easy solution, notes Ramesh Menon.
'I was never interested to work as Leader of Opposition but accepted the role on demand of the party MLAs'
The biggest shocker is in Haryana where at least three exit polls predicted decimation of the Opposition, but the BJP won 40 seats in the 90-member assembly and the Congress 31 seats.
'Switching loyalty from one party to another is completely unfair as it devalues my vote.'
The Devendra Fadnavis-led government in the state is most likely to get another term.
Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers on Monday went on the rampage, vandalising toll plazas in different parts of the state following their leader's diktat not to pay the levy and "thrash" those who raise a voice against it.
Shah said it was a matter of happiness for his party that a descendent of the Maratha king has joined it and asserted that Bhosale's presence will help it in the upcoming assembly elections.
The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine was leading in 39 constituencies and Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party in 31, according to trends from 90 seats in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was leading in seven seats while the Third Front was leading in five seats. Those leading include Industry Minister Narayan Rane (Kudal), Union Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's daughter Praniti (Solapur) and Omraje Nimbalkar (Osmanabad.
However, incumbent Chief Minster Ashok Chavan said the Congress-NCP alliance will be looking at the Republican Party of India for possible outside support if it fell short of the majority mark.
The advertisement highlights NCP chief Sharad Pawar's accomplishments as Union agriculture minister and thanks the UPA government for its support. While the Congress said it was unaware of the advertisement, the NCP claimed it was not issued by the party.
Chief Minister designate Ashok Chavan on Friday met Governor S C Jamir and staked claim to form the next government, 15 days after the Congress-NCP haggled over the portfolio issue.
Exit polls by two television channels on Tuesady projected that Maharashtra's ruling Congress-NCP alliance will emerge victorious in the Assembly elections and one of them predicted Congress victory in Haryana.
In the overcrowded local trains, auto-rickshaw stands, BEST buses and long queues at the Bandra-Worli sea link toll plaza, the staple language of Mumbai is Hindi, unlike most of the other cities of Maharashtra, where Marathi still dominates the public conversation domain.
Alarmed by damage made by Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has chalked out a campaign strategy which would focus on making people realise that voting MNS is akin to voting for Congress-NCP.
Deshmukh at a press conference in Mumbai on Sunday had threatened to sever ties with the NCP if it continued to raise the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins.
Pawar was the deputy CM twice in the 15-year regime of Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra during 1999-2014.
Veteran legislator Ganpatrao Deshmukh on Sunday created history by winning his 11th assembly election.
The two parties have agreed to contest 26 and 22 seats respectively.
Reacting to Patole's suggestion that he was under watch, the NCP, which handles the home department, on Monday said his claim was based on incomplete information, while the Shiv Sena asserted that all was well in the ruling alliance.
The Congress and the NCP are not comfortable with the name Maha Shiv Aghadi (a grand alliance comprising the Shiv Sena)
'Why should we disclose how and from where we will get these numbers?'
A senior NCP leader said the government is likely to be formed before the first phase of the Jharkhand polls scheduled on November 30.
A day after the Nationalist Congress Party pulled out of the Congress-led coalition government in Maharashtra reducing it to a minority, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday demanded its immediate dismissal and imposition of President's Rule in the state.
The Congress-NCP will now hold talks with Shiv Sena in Mumbai to "finalise the architecture of alliance".
The Congress-led grouping has some reasons to feel emboldened over recent political developments.
Fadnavis claimed the BJP was "beyond running behind anyone" as the people of India were with the party and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Vidarbha had given as many as 44 seats to the BJP in 2014. The Congress and NCP, plus independents and smaller parties, snatched 19 seats from the BJP, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
At least half a dozen toll plazas were vandalised on Monday by suspected Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists in Thane after party chief Raj Thackeray asked workers not to pay toll tariff and "crush" the toll gates.
While the BJP and ally Shiv Sena are yet to announce the seat-sharing pact for the polls, scheduled on October 21, the Amit Shah-led party believes it will be back to power with a thumping majority.
Thackeray would be taking over as chief minister more than a month after results of the Maharashtra Assembly elections were declared on October 24.
Hitting back at Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh, who recently snubbed him for extending an "unsolicited support" to Narendra Modi and "seeking votes" in his name without joining the Shiv-Sena-BJP-RPI alliance, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Monday taunted Singh for raising the objection, while Modi was silent on the issue.
From politics to fashion, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance remains intact. Prasanna D Zore reports
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