Fadnavis meets RSS chief Bhagwat as Maharashtra deadlock continues
Mumbai, Nov 5: Amid the stand-off with the ally Shiv Sena over government formation, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis flew to Nagpur on Tuesday night and met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
He arrived at the RSS headquarters in Mahal area in Nagpur around 9.25 pm and left after one and a half hours.
RSS functionaries in Nagpur were tight-lipped about what transpired at the meeting, though it is being speculated that the meeting was about the political deadlock in the state after the October 21 assembly elections.
Earlier in the day, senior state BJP leader and finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had said that "good news" about government formation may come at any moment.
Sena MP Sanjay Raut, however, said his party was firm on a written assurance from the BJP over power sharing, including rotating CM's post for 2.5 years.
There has been no headway in government formation after results of the October 21 Assembly polls were declared on October 24 and Sena and BJP crossed the halfway mark of 145 by winning 161 seats together.
"A good news regarding government formation can come at any moment," Mungantiwar told reporters after a meeting of state BJP core team at Fadnavis' official residence here.
BJP state unit president and minister Chandrakant Patil, who also attended the meeting, said they are now waiting for a proposal from the Shiv Sena.
Raut, on the other hand, reiterated that the next chief minister will be from his party.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
