Top news of the day: Shiv Sena asks rebel MLAs to return to Mumbai as Maharashta political crisis continues; ED allows Sonia Gandhi to depose in late July, and more

The major news headlines of the day and more.

Come here to talk if you want Shiv Sena to quit MVA; don’t communicate from Guwahati: Sanjay Raut

Amid the ongoing political crisis in Maharahstra, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, in a message to the rebel MLAs, said that they should come to Mumbai and present their case before Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and not communicate from Guwahati if they want the Shiv Sena to quit the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. Mr. Raut also asked the MLAs to come to Mumbai within the next 24 hours and present their demands before the party leadership.

Also, an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana said that the renegade legislators should “mend their ways in time”. The MLAs who have succumbed to the BJP’s “pressure tactics and inducements” should know that they would become “permanently former” if common Sena workers made up their mind, it added.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MLA Kailas Patil, who had escaped from a car carrying rebel legislators to Surat, claims some of those taken to the camp led by Maharashtra Minister Eknath Shinde might be wanting to return, but were forced to stay back.

National Herald case | ED asks Sonia Gandhi to depose late July

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has postponed the questioning of Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a money laundering case linked to the National Herald newspaper after the 75-year-old Congress leader could not keep the date as she “has been strictly advised to rest at home following her hospitalisation on account of Covid and lung infection”.

Ms. Gandhi was issued a second summons for June 23 and the questioning has now been postponed for about four weeks and she has been asked to depose sometime in the last week of July, according to sources.