Maharashtra minister Sanjay Rathod, facing flak from the opposition BJP after being linked to a woman s death, on Sunday resigned from the state cabinet. Rathod made the announcement after submitting his resignation to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who is also the president of his Shiv Sena party. There has been a lot of dirty politics over the issue of the woman s death, Rathod told reporters, adding he has quit the ministry so that the truth can come out. Rathod, who holds the forest portfolio, was facing allegations of complicity in the death of Puja Chavan (23), a resident of Beed district, who was found dead in Pune on February 8, apparently after falling off from the building in which she lived.
Kerala Chief Minister
Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday persisted with his attack on Rahul Gandhi and questioned the Congress leader s silence over his party-led government losing power in states such as Karnataka, Vijayan also sought to know why Gandhi was not visiting the states where Congress was directly fighting the BJP. Rahul Gandhi is a prominent leader of the Congress party. Is he visiting any state where the Congress is directly fighting with the BJP? What role did he play in Goa, Manipur, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and the latest in Puducherry? Why is he silent about these states? Why is Rahul Gandhi, a national leader of Congress party shying away from the places where his party directly fights with the BJP? Vijayan asked.
The AIADMK top leadership held seat-sharing talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday for the Tamil Nadu Assembly election. Chief Minister K Palaniswsami, who is the AIADMK joint coordinator, and his deputy O Panneerselvam, who is the party s coordinator, called on Shah at a star hotel in Chennai late on Sunday. The talks that started around 10 pm were on after two hours, a day after the AIADMK and the BJP initiated the parleys. The BJP has expectations of getting 60 seats that it had identified as winnable . Shah had earlier arrived in Tamil Nadu for an election rally. The AIADMK had earlier clinched its seat-sharing deal with ally PMK, allotting 23 seats to it.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister
Shivraj Singh Chouhan asserted on Sunday that the BJP will win the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal, and Mamata Banerjee will lose her chief ministership on May 2 the day the votes will be counted. Offering puja at the Dakshineswar Temple on the banks of the Hooghly on the northern fringes of Kolkata, Chouhan said he prayed for a violence-free Bengal. After the misrule by Congress and CPI(M), resulting in Bengal s decline over the years, the state of affairs touched a new bottom with cut money and corruption culture during Trinamool Congress s rule. People of the state want a change and will bring BJP to power this time, he told reporters.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur will present Budget for the financial year 2021-22 in the state Assembly on March 6, with COVID-19 protocol in place, Speaker Vipin Parmar said on Thursday. The budget session will commence on February 26 with Governor Bandaru Dattatraya s address, the Speaker told the media. The session would conclude on March 20, he added. Thakur, who also holds additional charge of the finance department, will present the budget on March 6, Parmar said. The budget session will have a total of 17 sittings, he added. No visitor will be allowed to come to the Assembly to watch the proceedings during the budget session due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, the Speaker said.