Zeeshan Shaikh
Articles By Zeeshan Shaikh
Waiting in the wings: Sena’s new Maha power balance
Ties with BJP have been strained. But is that what explains the Shiv Sena going for broke in Maharashtra? Or is it part of the churning within the party, seeking to expand its base and in midst of a generation change, seven years after Bal Thackeray’s death? The Indian Express report on a new Maharashtra power balance
Congress closes door on Sena but NCP window still open
At least two senior Congress leaders, told The Indian Express that they expected a deadlock and that the state could be heading for a spell of President’s Rule.
Shiv Sena’s bid falls through, Governor gives NCP a day
Earlier, the BJP, the single-largest party with 105 seats, and invited first by the Governor, expressed its unwillingness to stake claim for government formation.
After 12 yrs in jail, Faheem Ansari is out: Karkare told officials I was innocent
The youngest of nine siblings, Ansari spent much of his life in Mumbai before moving to Dubai in 2008 to work at a printing press. Two years into his job, he was arrested when he returned on vacation.
Maharashtra: Flood-hit Manmad gets water every 16 days
Manmad faces a perennial water crisis. The crisis hit its peak in summer this year, when the Waghdardi dam, from which the city gets its water supply, dried up completely.
Maharashtra: Grape producing regions to face squeeze
Maharashtra is in the middle of an agrarian crisis with 54.22 lakh hectares of the total 138.82 lakh hectares under kharif sowing damaged in the unexpected post-monsoon rain that the state received in the last week of October.
4.5 lakh farmers in Nashik stare at worst harvest in 5 decades
Only a month ago, the 68-year-old farmer, who has been working on the farm since she was 16, was readying herself for a bumper tomato crop. But the extended wet weather in Maharashtra, coupled with the two-day rain in the last leg of October, has literally “poured cold water” on her dreams.
Para-dropped to Bhiwandi 15 days before Assembly polls, SP leader wins seat; 3rd victory in 7 years
A former PR professional-turned-politician, Shaikh had made his electoral debut in 2012 in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election and won from Govandi.
Independents to watch out for in Maharashtra: 8 BJP-Sena rebels, 1 maverick
A day after the Assembly poll verdict, both main political formations are scrambling to woo Independent MLAs. The BJP, in particular, is keen to get them on its side before power-sharing talks with ally Shiv Sena are finalised. A glance at these 13 MLAs.
How Sharad Pawar scripted NCP fightback in Maharashtra: 66 rallies in poll run-up
NCP chief Sharad Pawar showed just how his leadership helped the party improve its tally from 41 seats in 2014 to 54 in Maharashtra, just two behind the Shiv Sena.
Maharashtra: Backed by erstwhile Nashik unit of Sena, rebel aims for a six
While Shinde does come across as self-effacing, he has been responsible for creating a flutter in Maharashtra’s poltical history with 35 Shiv Sena corporators and over 350 party office-bearers resigning from their posts in support of his candidacy.
Malegaon: Party hopper Mufti Ismail banks on piety, promises to undo ‘mistakes’
Ahead of the 2009 state polls, a cleric with a salary of Rs 5,000, Mufti had pedaled across Malegaon on his creaky bicycle promising change as a candidate of Jan Surajya Shakti Party.
Bhujbal senior takes it upon himself to woo voters for ‘shy’ MLA son
For the 5,000 residents who had gathered, the fact that the person who was being lauded remained absent from the gathering did not go unnoticed. While Pankaj’s supporters claim he is soft spoken and shy, his detractors call him a recluse.
Maharashtra Samajwadi Party Abu Asim Azmi: Have been betrayed by Congress
Azmi said Congress leaders in Delhi are still living under the illusion that they will come here, raise their hands... and people will vote for them.
The votebank | Muslims: In Maharashtra, they are trying to reshape political identity
The resurgence of the BJP is deemed to be one of the most important reasons for the blunting of the Muslim card which used to play a decisive role in up to 40 Assembly seats in Maharashtra.
I can’t do anything else but politics: Aaditya Thackeray
More than two decades later, as he lays the ground for his own electoral debut, Aaditya Thackeray, the Shiv Sena heir apparent, has seized on environmental issues, to stake out an identity for himself as a “woke” champion of socially progressive values.
‘From biscuits to cars, nothing is selling; govt giving money to corporates via tax waivers’
CPI(M) central committee member Dr Ashok Dhawale speaks to The Indian Express about his party’s poll prospects and why it is allying with the Congress-NCP combine, of which it has been critical in the past.
‘We have made a request that five Muslims should be given tickets’: Hyder Azam, vice-president, Mumbai BJP
Hyder Azam, vice-president of Mumbai BJP, speaks to The Indian Express on why Muslims need to vote for the BJP and how he hopes the party should grant tickets to at least five candidates from the community in the upcoming Assembly elections.
Reality of our times no one stands for Muslims’ empowerment: AIMIM MP Imtiaz Jaleel
Aurangabad MP Imtiaz Jaleel speaks to The Indian Express about his party’s poll prospects, the status of Muslims in Indian polity and why its attempt at striking a Dalit-Muslim political front came unstuck.
Pawar and nephew, Sena, Congress leaders booked by ED in co-op bank fraud
The Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was registered Monday, ED sources said Tuesday, adding that the case is based on an FIR filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police in connection with alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.