Uddhav Thackeray

Deepak Kesarkar, the spokesperson for the Eknath Shinde faction, said Thackeray’s ”public appearances” have increased now, referring to the party outreach programmes launched by the Sena president after the collapse of his government last month.

The development assumes significance as recently the poll panel has asked the rival factions of the Shiv Sena led by Thackeray and Shinde to submit documents by August 8 in support of their claims on the election symbol -- bow and arrow -- of the political outfit.

The Sena indulges in politics for Hindutva, whereas the BJP uses Hindutva for its political interests, Thackeray claimed while addressing the Sena workers on Sunday after inaugurating a ward level party office in south Mumbai.

The city police have started issuing notices under section 149 of the CrPC, prohibiting unlawful gathering at the protest venue in the western suburb of Goregaon, he said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government announced the renaming of Aurangabad in central Maharashtra as `Sambhajinagar’ — after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s elder son Chhatrapati Sambhaji — in its last cabinet meeting on June 29, hours before Thackeray resigned.

”We are not going for the meeting. There is no message yet whether Murmu will visit Uddhavji at ’Matoshree’,” Sena’s Sindhudurg MP Vinayak Raut told PTI.

The incident took place on July 6, when Sena functionary Bhagwan Kale (55) along with other party activists went to Thackeray’s residence ’Matoshree’ in Bandra area of Mumbai to declare their support to him. Kale suffered a heart attack and died while being rushed to a hospital.

A delegation of Shiv Sena MLCs – Manisha Kayande, Sachin Ahir, Ambadas Danve, Vilas Potnis and Sunil Shinde – met Counil Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe on Monday and submitted a letter staking claim for the post of the LoP and chief whip.

A shift in Shiv Sena votes will not alter the outcome of the Presidential polls since NDA has a numerical advantage after the support its candidate received from Biju Janata Dal and other regional parties. However, Thackeray's decision to back Murmu would be a setback for the Opposition front that has fielded Yashwant Sinha as its candidate for the top constitutional post.

Shinde and Fadnavis, who assumed office on June 30, are also expected to make courtesy calls on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

He also demanded mid-term elections in Maharashtra, saying that people should be allowed to take a stand on toppling of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by him.

The Shiv Sena as a political party and the Sena legislature party are "two different entities", Sawant told a web portal, and claimed the "rebel group does not have recognition".

A vacation bench headed by Justice Indira Banerjee said the fresh plea would be heard by the same bench after the summer break on July 11 along with other pending pleas.

The election to the post of the Speaker of the House will be held Sunday after the House proceedings begin at 11 am, an official said.

Shinde took oath as the chief minister on Thursday with BJP's Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy following the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government on Wednesday.

The Sena, in an editorial in its mouthpiece ’Saamana’, said that Fadnavis’s act of becoming deputy chief minister instead of chief minister is now being defended as an instance of his ”big heart” and ”adherence to the party’s directives”

In a sign of how sour things have turned between him and the BJP now, Rao is planning a grand welcome for Opposition’s presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha in the city on Saturday where the top brass of the saffron party, including Modi, is holding its national executive to plan, among other things, the Telangana CM’s ouster from power.

State NCP spokesman Mahesh Tapase said the BJP had termed the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government as a "three-wheel auto-rickshaw"

A central BJP minister claimed that the split in the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra will also have an impact in the Lok Sabha as at least a dozen Lok Sabha members of the party, out of the total 19, were ready to switch sides.

In a letter to Shinde, who was sworn in as Maharashtra Chief Minister a day earlier, Thackeray accused him of "indulging in anti-party activities".