Maharashtra

Small groups of the employees were seen rushing towards the high-security Pawar residence in Silver Oaks Building, broke the security barricades, shouted slogans, and pelted stones, shoes at their home. Taken aback by the unexpected 'attack', NCP MP Supriya Sule, Pawar's daughter, rushed out of the home right into the midst of the agitating state transport workers crowding there and appealed to them to remain calm and sit for negotiations.

A CBI team took charge of the senior Nationalist Congress Party leader Deshmukh from the Arthur Road Central Jail -- where he has been in judicial custody of the Special PMLA Court since over five months -- and placed him under arrest for further investigations. Through his lawyer Aniket Nikam, Deshmukh had challenged before the Bombay High Court a Special Court's order allowing the CBI to take him into custody.

The MNS workers also raised slogans of 'Jai Shree Ram' as they gathered outside the party's office at Sai Chowk. The move by MNS workers to play Hanuman Chalisa has been criticized by the top leaders of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut went on to allege that Raj Thackeray's speech was scripted and sponsored by theBJP.

In a Macaque-shaming somersault, Raj slammed Uddhav for not respecting the peoples' mandate in favour of Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2019 Assembly elections and choosing to ally with Nationalist Congress Party-Congress to head the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. "He has betrayed the peoples' verdict. He claims there was a closed-door understanding with Amit Shah to share the post of CM. Why he remembered it only after the elections," boomed Raj.

In a letter to Thackeray, state Congress President Nana Patole said that the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress - hailing from different ideological backgrounds -- had decided to run the MVA government on the basis of a CMP. "Owing to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020, the CMP implementation was delayed, but now as the coronavirus threat is over, the CMP should be executed for the overall development of all sections of society," Patole urged the Chief Minister.

Coming three days after his brother-in-law faced action by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Thackeray also questioned the corruption allegations levelled by the BJP and the actions of various central probe agencies to defame the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, its leaders and their families.

The BJP has fielded Agnimitra Paul for the Lok Sabha by-polls from Asansol in West Bengal against TMC candidate and former union minister Shatrughan Sinha. Paul is the MLA from Asansol South assembly constituency and general secretary of the West Bengal BJP. In a statement BJP national general secretary Arun Singh said, "The BJP Central Election Committee has approved the following names for biennial polls of Rajya Sabha."