Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena-UBT had their third meeting in two days on Thursday, following Fadnavis' light-hearted invitation for Thackeray to "join us" in the government.

The closed-door meeting lasted over 20 minutes and took place in the antechamber of Vidhan Parishad Chairman Ram Shinde at Vidhan Bhavan. The meeting focused on handing over a Marathi book titled “Why Hindi Should Not Be Imposed” to Fadnavis, along with a request to reconsider the imposition of Hindi as a third language in primary schools in the state, as reported by The New Indian Express on Friday.

Aaditya Thackeray was also present, and the discussion reportedly included the controversial three-language policy.

Fadnavis accepted the book but suggested that Uddhav Thackeray submit it to Narendra Jadhav, head of the committee reviewing the three-language policy.

Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray has demanded that the Speaker allow the post of Leader of the Opposition to his party, TNIE quoted its sources as saying. Thackeray had recommended Bhaskar Jadhav for the position, asserting that with 20 MLAs, Shiv Sena-UBT is the largest opposition party.

However, Speaker Rahul Narvekar has not taken any decision in this regard, and the CM has said it is the Speaker’s right to decide. The reason cited for the delay is that no opposition party has legislators representing 10 percent of the total assembly strength of 288, added the report.

This meeting follows a public comment by CM Fadnavis during a farewell ceremony for Leader of Opposition Ambadas Danve, where he jokingly invited Thackeray to join the ruling alliance, sparking speculation across the state. “Look Uddhav-ji, there is no scope of (our) going there (in the opposition) till 2029. But if you want to come over here, then consider it. It depends on you... it can be considered,” Fadnavis told Thackeray.

However, Uddhav Thackeray said that things were spoken on a lighter note in the House and need not be taken seriously. "Let it go. Some things should be taken on lighter note," he said when asked to comment on Fadnavis's offer.

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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.

The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.

Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.

Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.

What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.

"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,

which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.

"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.

"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.

"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.

In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.

The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.

With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.

Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).