Poonam Mahajan to contest from Ghatkopar West in Maharashtra polls

October 13th, 2009 MUMBAI - Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan cast his vote here today. After casting his vote, Chavan asked the people to come out and use their right to vote for their candidate.

October 13th, 2009 Rohtak (Haryana)/PUNE - Prominent leaders came out to cast their votes for the assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana on Tuesday. In Rohtak, Bhajan Lal, former Haryana Chief Minister and chief of the Haryana Janhit Congress came out and cast his vote.

September 26th, 2009 MUMBAI - Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) General Secretary Satish Pradhan resigned from the post on Saturday giving a blow to the Raj Thakre led party just before the assembly election. Pradhan was reportedly not satisfied with the distribution of party tickets for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls.

September 23rd, 2009 MUMBAI - Poonam Mahajan, daughter of slain Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan, on Wednesday filed her nomination for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. Poonam would be contesting as BJP candidate from Ghatkopar constituency in suburban Mumbai.

September 20th, 2009 MUMBAI - Senior Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi's house was ransacked here on Sunday by some party workers who were agitated over the neglect of their favourite local leader during ticket allocation for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections. According to sources the outrage was over demand of ticket to dadar constituencies sitting MLA for upcoming assembly polls.

September 20th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party are facing dissidence over their seat-sharing for the Oct 13 Maharashtra assembly polls as supporters of some aspirants Saturday attacked the houses of former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi and BJP candidate Poonam Mahajan here Sunday. Police said that supporters of Sada Sarvankar, Sena legislator from Dadar, went on a rampage at the upscale Oceania building at Shivaji Park, where Joshi lives on the ninth floor, shouting slogans against him and pelting stones Sunday afternoon.

September 19th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday arrived at a seat-sharing understanding for the Oct 13 elections to the Maharashtra assembly, it was announced here. As per the agreed formula, Shiv Sena will contest 169 of the 288 assembly seats and BJP the other 119, senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde told reporters.

September 19th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance's seat sharing formula for the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections has been announced at a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday. The Shiv Sena will contest 169 of the 288 Assembly seats, while the BJP will contest from the other 119.

September 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Congress party on Thursday announced that it will contest 174 seats in the October 13 assembly elections in Maharashtra, while its partner, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will contest 114. Addressing the media here, Chaudhary Virendra Singh, who oversees Congress affairs in the state of Maharashtra, said, the seat-sharing arrangement has been finalised after several rounds of talks.

September 14th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Election Commission of Indian (ECI) has allotted the railway engine as the symbol to the Raj Thakre - led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). The Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi (BVA) and Jan Surya Shakti Party (JSSP) will contest under the symbols of the whistle and the coconut respectively.

May 17th, 2009 MUMBAI - Triumphed with his party's success in the Lok Sabha elections, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Sunday said that he wants the Congress party to go alone in the upcoming assembly polls. "We want to contest assembly elections in Maharashtra without aligning with any other party.

April 6th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has decided to contest 12 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, party chief Raj Thackeray announced here Monday. Thackeray said the party will field candidates in Nashik, Pune, Aurangabad, Kalyan, Bhiwandi, Thane and all six seats in Mumbai.

April 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI/MUMBAI - At a bookshop in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in Delhi, the one item that sells like hot cakes is a CD on how to make a speech by the late Pramod Mahajan - a former minister, an astute strategist, funds manager and troubleshooter whom the party will sorely miss in these elections. Pointing to the CD at the shop, a party worker quipped: 'Varun (Gandhi) could have taken lessons from this.' Many in the BJP say had Mahajan been around, he would have helped handle sticky situations better - among them Varun Gandhi's reported hate speeches, breakups with key allies, and the spat between the party's poll managers.

March 27th, 2009 MUMBAI - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) youth wing leader Poonam Mahajan-Rao, daughter of late Pramod Mahajan, Friday met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, then said there was 'nothing political' about the meeting. After the meeting, Poonam denied rumours that she was quitting the BJP and joining the MNS.

March 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - After its failure to cobble a poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar, the Congress party Monday stuck a deal over sharing of seats with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra. 'We will fight unitedly as alliance partners in Maharashtra.