Daily Briefing: Uddhav Thackeray resigns as Maharashtra CM; accused in Udaipur tailor’s killing found to have Pakistan links

The Big Story

Outnumbered after a rebellion in his own party and realising he will not be able to prove majority on the floor of the Assembly, Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Wednesday night, shortly after the Supreme Court declined to stay a floor test called Thursday by the Governor.

Thackeray has not only lost chief ministership after taking a gamble with an unlikely coalition, he is facing the prospect of losing control of a party founded by Balasaheb and deriving sustenance from the Thackeray name.

What’s next? A source told The Indian Express that top BJP leaders from Maharashtra will hold a meeting Thursday to finalise their next course of action. He added that BJP will stake claim for the formation of the new government under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis, backed the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena.In

The rebels, expected to align with the BJP, flew on a special Spice Jet flight to South Goa. Sources said that they were met by Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant late Wednesday night, the sources said.

Only in The Express

Opining on the brutal murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: “The perpetrators’ gruesome execution works as a strategy, because they know we will make a political business out of it… The will to condemn this act has to be accompanied by the commitment to build a free society. Otherwise Kanhaiya’s executioners win.”

Speaking to The Indian Express, Lal’s wife, Yashoda said, “My husband was consistently receiving threats that he would be killed. People would come to his shop and threaten him… If timely action had been taken, he would have been alive.” His son, Yash, added: “Despite the fact that he was receiving threats, the police didn’t provide him protection.”

From the Front Page

One of the accused in Lal’s murder, Ghouse Mohammad, had been to Karachi in 2014 and been making phone calls to Pakistan “for the last 2-3 years”, Rajasthan Minister of State for Home Rajendra Singh Yadav said. Director General of Police M L Lather said Ghouse had gone to visit the office of Dawat-e-Islami, Sunni Islamic proselytising group, in Karachi.

Among the two options detailed by the Centre for states to borrow to meet the compensation deficit of Rs 2.35 lakh crore this fiscal under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, a total of 12 states, mostly consisting of BJP-ruled states, have opted for Option 1 — borrowing of Rs 97,000 crore through a RBI-facilitated special window. Only one state, Manipur, has so far opted for Option 2 which involves borrowing the entire compensation deficit from the market.

Must Read

RFID tags for all pilgrims, unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance of routes, deployment of over 80,000 security personnel – a multi-layer security cover is in place for the Amarnath Yatra this year. The annual yatra is taking place after a gap of two years due to the pandemic – it is the first since the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status on August 5, 2019. The first batch of pilgrims will set off from the Pahalgam and Baltal base camps on Thursday. 

The Da’wat-e-Islami (DeI), the group to which Rajasthan police have linked Ghouse Mohammad who killed tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, is a Sunni Barelvi proselytising group that was founded in Pakistan four decades ago. It has chapters in several western countries. We take a look at the group’s origins, ideology and its growth. 

And Finally

One of India’s several dilemmas heading to the Edgbaston Test would be, to tweak Shane Warne’s tweet, “if you don’t pick two spinners at Edgbaston, then when?” India has seldom picked two spinners in a Test match outside Asia, even if it possesses two of the finest around in Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.Chances are, if they don’t pair up this time around, they will never again in England.

Delhi Confidential: BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh retweeted a post, which had a letter issued from Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Ritu Khanduri’s office. The letter, denying reports about the appointment of a media adviser to Khanduri, was marked to the BJP general secretary as well. Suddenly, questions on why an official release from the Speaker’s office was marked to a party office-bearer were raised on social media. 

In today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, we talk about what is known so far in the case of the brutal murder of a tailor in Udaipur, fuel shortage at pumps and the Hermit software.

Until next time,

Sonal Gupta and Srishti Kapoor

Business As Usual by E P Unny