Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday suggested that as long as he is the party's state unit chief, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should become the chief minister for the "overall development" of the state. The statement comes months after Bawankule's predecessor Chandrakant Patil, who is now a cabinet minister, had said that the party decided with a heavy heart that rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde should become the state's chief minister instead of Fadnavis. Bawankule's remark gave ammunition to the opposition parties, with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) saying that it showed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had no value for current CM Shinde. Speaking at a public event in Nagpur, Bawankule said, "...As long as I am the state unit president (of the BJP), Fadnavis should become..." The BJP leader left the sentence incomplete and took a pause as he waited for response from the audience. After a couple of persons from the audience shouted .
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday said that on the one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi mediates in the Russia-Ukraine war, while on the other he turns a blind eye to the simmering Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute, which is "not a sign of a good politician". In his weekly column 'Rokhthok' in the party mouthpiece Saamana, Raut also said that the border dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka was a struggle for humanity, and not a fight between people and governments of the two states. Maharashtra has been long claiming Belagavi and surrounding border areas in north Karnataka as they have a sizable Marathi-speaking population. The decades-old border dispute resurfaced again after Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai recently claimed that some villages in Sangli district in Maharashtra have passed a resolution to become a part of the southern state owing to lack of basic facilities there. "The struggle of the Marathi-speaking population in Belagavi and nearby ..
Maharashtra Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar on Saturday said that Karnataka and Maharashtra CMs' talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah regarding the border issue should be made public
Kavalapur village in Miraj taluka of Sangli district is known as "Carrot village" because the villagers cultivate carrots on hundreds of acres here
An integrated soil waste management project worth Rs 148.68 crore has been sanctioned for Ambernath, Ulhasnagar and Badlapur towns in Maharashtra's Thane district, local Lok Sabha MP Shrikant Shinde said on Friday. This is the first instance in the state where three civic bodies have come together to build such a "cluster project", claimed Kalyan MP Shinde, who is Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's son. Addressing a press conference, he said the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will contribute Rs 128.88 crore, while the rest of the project amount would be shared equally by the civic bodies of Ambernath and Ulhasnagar. The Badlapur civic body will not have to shell out money as it has given 23.80 acres of land for the project, he added. "The population of the three towns is 12.50 lakh at present and will rise to 17 lakh by 2037. The integrated soil waste management plant will have a capacity to treat 600 tonnes per day when it starts operations. This can be raise
Public interest litigation (PIL) matters are being increasingly used to target infrastructure projects, the Supreme Court observed on Friday while refusing to entertain a plea challenging the re-development of a plot of land in Mumbai. "The PILs could become an instrument of blackmail when it is an issue of an infrastructure project. This actually makes a plank to target such projects. The (Bombay) High Court has actually smelled the rat here. This is happening across Delhi, Mumbai....," a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha said. The top court was hearing an appeal against the dismissal of a plea by the Bombay High Court challenging the redevelopment of a plot of land at Mumbai's Worli. It concurred with the high court's findings that the PIL was filed to target the project. "When a particular property is targeted in a PIL, the high court is often aware why the party has approached it. The idea is to target one project and the high court often knows wh
The ongoing Maharashtra-Karnataka row may have brought the border dispute between states under focus, but people living in 14 disputed villages along the Maharashtra-Telangana border appear to be unmoved by this debate as they are enjoying the benefits of schemes implemented by both neighbouring states. The residents of these villages say that they have no problem in going with any of the two states if the local government awards ownership of their farmlands to them. All these 14 villages - located in Jiwati taluka of Chandrapur district (according to Maharashtra map) - figure in the voters list of both the states and people there enjoy dual identity, entitling them to take benefits of all the basic facilities including political status from both Telangana and Maharashtra. Earlier Andhra Pradesh, and now Telangana (after division) claimed that these villages fall under their territory. However, the issue has remained unresolved so far. Waman Pawar, former sarpanch of Paramdoli gram
Days after residents of four villages in Buldhana district of Maharashtra demanded merger of these places into neighbouring Madhya Pradesh alleging lack of facilities at the local level, the state government has initiated the process to build new roads there. People residing in these four villages - Bhingara, Gomal-1, Gomal-2 and Chalistapari - in Jalgaon Jamod taluka of Buldhana had made the demand for merger in a letter written to the district administration last week, in which they also claimed that they have been struggling to get their rights since the last 75 years. Their demand came against the backdrop of Karnataka Chief Minister recently claiming, amid tension over a border dispute, that some villages in southern Maharashtra's Sangli district once wanted to be part of Karnataka because of their acute water problem. The letter, written on December 6 by Bhingara sarpanch Rajesh Mohan, said among other things, that the residents of these villages find it difficult to get the .
The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM will take out a march during the upcoming winter session of the Maharashtra legislature in Nagpur to demand five per cent reservation for Muslims in the state, a party leader said. All India Majalis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP from Aurangabad and its state unit president Imtiaz Jaleel gave this information by tweeting a poster of the planned march. "The AIMIM will take out a march on 21 December from Indora Ground in Nagpur to Vidhan Bhawan during the session of the Maharashtra legislature," it said. Apart from seeking five per cent reservation to Muslims, the AIMIM will also highlight the demand of removal of encroachments from the Waqf land, the tweet said. Provision of Rs 1,000 crore subsidy to Maulana Azad Minorities Financial Development Corporation Limited; awarding ownership of slum land to residents; financial assistance to hand-loom and power-loom workers are some other demands which the party will raise during the march, it added. The
Reports that a pro-Marathi group had attacked a Bank of Karnataka vehicle in Belagavi is concocted, say police
He said that all like-minded parties have agreed upon the agenda of the protest rally and would like to request people to join us in large numbers
The Maharashtra Government on Thursday said the Hinduja group will be investing Rs 35,000 crore in the state. The Chief Minister's Office tweeted that an MoU was signed between the state government and Hinduja group in the presence of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. G P Hinduja and Ashok Hinduja of the Hinduja group were present on the occasion. An official said the group has identified 11 sectors for investment in the state, including infrastructure, biotech, Electric Vehicles, manufacturing and health. The Shinde government had come under fire earlier this year when Maharashtra lost some big-ticket projects including Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plant to other states.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that nothing came out of Union Home Minister Amit Shah's meeting with the chief ministers of Maharashtra and Karnataka over the border dispute. Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with his Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Congress and NCP, he also said it was difficult to believe that some tweets from the verified handle of Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on the issue were not actually posted by him. "What was achieved by yesterday's meeting of Union home minister Amit Shah with chief ministers of Maharashtra and Karnataka? It was rubbing of salt into our wounds. As always, the deliberations favoured Karnataka," Thackeray said. The former chief minister demanded to know why Karnataka holds legislature sessions in Belagavi (the north Karnataka city which is the main bone of contention between the two states) and accorded it the status of second capital when the border dispute was before the Supreme Court. ''Belagav
Mumbai on Wednesday recorded ten new cases of measles infection, taking the tally of cases in the city since the start of the year to 472, civic officials said. The death toll due to the viral disease since January 1, 2022 remained unchanged at eight. A day before, zero new cases were reported in the city. As many as 46 children were admitted to city hospital during the day, and 35 children were discharged. Maharashtra has reported 1,038 measles cases as of December 13 since the start of the year while the death toll stands at 20.
Maharashtra on Wednesday reported 22 new COVID-19 cases, taking the overall tally to 81,36,252, while one more patient succumbed to the infection in the state, pushing up the toll to 1,48,409, said the health department. Fresh addition to the coronavirus death toll in the state has been reported after a gap of several days. Maharashtra had recorded 27 COVID-19 cases and zero fatality on Tuesday. The Mumbai administrative circle reported 11 cases, followed by Pune (6), Latur (3), and Nashik circles (2), said the health department in a bulletin. The Mumbai circle reported the lone coronavirus-related death, it said. An administrative circle consists of multiple districts and the state has eight such circles. With 9,219 swab samples tested in the last 24 hours, their cumulative number in the state rose to 8,57,76,957, said the bulletin. The number of recoveries increased to 79,87,650 after 24 patients recuperated from the infection during the day, leaving the state with 193 active
The Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday said the Maharashtra government's decision to look into issues only of women in inter-faith and inter-caste marriages shows signs of a prejudiced mindset and is a "retrograde" step. The state government has set up a committee to gather information on the inter-faith and inter-caste marriage couples and maternal families of women involved if they are estranged. The panel head and state minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha said the move is aimed at avoiding a repeat of the Shraddha Walkar case. Walkar, a resident of Vasai in Maharashtra, was allegedly killed by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala in their Delhi flat. He allegedly chopped her body into multiple pieces before disposing of them over several weeks. NCP national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said it is good the government has plans to provide a platform for women who are in inter-caste or inter-faith marriages to access counselling and resolve issues with their families, especially those w
Maharashtra has been politicising the border dispute for six decades, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said here on Wednesday
Several former corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation have written a letter, which they termed as an "SOS call", to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, alleging lack of transparency, financial mismanagement, policy paralysis and arbitrary transfers under the rule of state-appointed administrator and civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal. The letter signed by 94 former corporators cutting across the party lines, including former mayor Kishori Pednekar of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), claimed that the morale of officers was at an "all-time low" and the entire governance had come to a standstill as the operations were being run as per the "whims and fancies" of the administrator. In the letter written on December 12, they urged Shinde to "intervene immediately" and direct the administrator to publish a white paper on the state of affairs of the BMC, saying that they were unable to see the "deep rot" and "decline" of the BMC. The term of these corporators end
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday said that state government will tell its stand on the border dispute with Maharashtra during the scheduled meeting with Amit Shah on December 14
A company won project to build elevated road near Mumbai but municipal corporation cancelled the tender without explaining a reason