Mumbai: The Sharad Pawar-led NCP suffered a huge blow ahead of the BMC elections as its Mumbai unit president Rakhi Jadhav joined BJP, and several poll aspirants, including Nitin Deshmukh and former corporator Dhananjay Pisal, defected to the Ajit Pawar-led NCP on Monday. The NCP (SP) seems on the verge of disintegration in Mumbai, political observers said, as state party president Shashikant Shinde and senior leader Jayant Patil failed to stitch an alliance with Maha Vikas Aghadi allies — Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress — despite several rounds of talks. Further, the two senior leaders did not give any direction to the cadre and local netas forcing them to look for alternative political options. “There is a total collapse of the NCP (SP) party machinery in Mumbai. This was purely because of poor handling of affairs,” a political observer said. “They should have allied with Ajit Pawar’s NCP like they are doing in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. But by not finalising an alliance with either side, they ended up destroying whatever little party organisation was there. They lost good candidates to BJP, which is a setback. It seems that NCP (SP) gave up BMC altogether. Surprisingly, Ajit Pawar’s NCP did better,” a political observer said.Pisal, who was previously an NCP group leader in the BMC, will now contest from ward no 111 on an Ajit Pawar-led NCP ticket. Three-time corporator Jadhav joined BJP as she was reportedly dissatisfied with the response from NCP (SP). “BJP is working for Mumbai, and I took this decision to work in my constituency. I did not get the expected response from NCP (SP), and we could not do justice to the party workers,” she said.On Monday, NCP (SP) released its first list of seven candidates for the BMC polls, including Ajit Raorane from ward no 43, Sanjay Kamnle from ward no 140, Manju Jaiswal from ward no 112, and Ganesh Shinde from ward no 48.The undivided NCP had eight corporators in the 2017 BMC polls, and party supremo Sharad Pawar was known to have a base in several wards.For over a week, the NCP (SP) held parallel negotiations with Sena (UBT) and Congress, but both alliances failed to work out. NCP (SP) initially demanded 50 seats from Congress after efforts to reach a workable seat-sharing arrangement with the Sena (UBT)-MNS combine did not materialise. Congress functionaries said they offered around two dozen seats to NCP (SP) since the party has presence in some areas.On Dec 26, Jayant Patil met Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray at Matoshree. Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut said: “There is no need to announce that the NCP (SP) is with us…We left most of the seats that they wanted. That means an alliance was formed. Some of the seats they wanted went to the MNS, so we told them to discuss it with Raj Thackeray. We ended this issue from our side.”

Smriti Mandhana, Shubman Gill

Smriti Mandhana is close to creating new records with her batting in 2025. The India opener has scored 1,703 runs across formats this calendar year, the most by any woman in a single year. She needs 62 more runs to become the highest run-scorer of 2025 across both men’s and women’s international cricket, going past Shubman Gill’s total of 1,764 runs.Mandhana’s run-scoring at the top of the order has played a key role in India Women’s results this season. She has scored runs in different formats and conditions while setting up innings for the team.

India Women will play Sri Lanka on Tuesday in the fifth T20I. India have already taken an unassailable lead in the series and will look to complete a 5-0 sweep.Mandhana recently became the second Indian and fourth overall among women players to complete 10,000 runs in international cricket. She reached the milestone during the fourth T20I of the five-match series against Sri Lanka at the Greenfield International Stadium on Sunday. She is the fourth woman batter after Mithali Raj, Suzie Bates and Charlotte Edwards, and the second Indian after Mithali Raj, to reach the mark.In Test cricket, Mandhana has scored 629 runs in seven matches and 12 innings at an average of 57.18, with two hundreds and three fifties. In ODIs, she has 5,322 runs from 117 matches at an average of 48.38, with 14 hundreds and 34 fifties, making her the sixth-highest run-scorer in the format. In T20Is, she has 4,102 runs from 157 matches at an average of 29.94, with a strike rate of 124.22, including one hundred and 32 fifties, and is the second-highest run-getter.In the fourth T20I, Mandhana scored 80 off 48 balls with 11 fours and three sixes, helping India post their highest women’s T20I total of 221 for 2. India defended the total and beat Sri Lanka by 30 runs to take a 4-0 lead in the series.

‘Dhurandhar’ the spy-thriller, directed by Aditya Dhar and starring Ranveer Singh and Akshaye Khanna in lead roles, has emerged as a blockbuster at the Indian and worldwide box office. The film that entered its fourth week at the box office, has been rewriting several long-standing records along the way.Dhurandhar Movie Review

‘Dhurandhar’ box office collection Day 25

On its fourth Monday, ‘Dhurandhar’ saw a dip in collections at the box office. However, it still managed to stay above the Rs 10 crore mark. As per early reports on sacnilk, the film earned around Rs 10.50 crore India net. With this, the film’s total domestic net collection has crossed Rs 701 crore in just 25 days. As per the report, the film’s new net total surpassing the Rs 700 crore mark, has made it the highest-ever net total for a Bollywood film.

‘Dhurandhar’ Occupancy

On Monday, ‘Dhurandhar’ recorded an overall Hindi occupancy of 21.39%. While the morning shows began with a modest 11.98% occupancy, its evening shows witnessed the highest footfalls at 26.67%.

‘Dhurandhar’ week-wise collections

As per reports, the film earned an estimated Rs 207.25 crore in week one and followed it up with good growth in week two, earning a record-breaking total of Rs 253.25 Crore. Week 3 saw the film earn an estimated Rs 172 Crore collection. Meanwhile, the current total of week 4 currently stands at an estimated Rs 68.5 crore. With the New Year’s break coming up, it remains to be seen if the film can get one more big boost to push it past the Rs 100 crore mark for the fourth consecutive week.

‘Dhurandhar’ gross collections

In India, ‘Dhurandhar’ has already become the biggest Bollywood grosser of all time, with its gross collections reaching approximately Rs 841.6 crore in just a total of 25 days and still three days to go before it wraps up week 4.

‘Dhurandhar’ overseas collections

Overseas, the film has registered a good performance with its collections thus far, standing at around Rs 237 crore. This takes the film’s worldwide cumulative total to an impressive Rs 1078 crore.

‘Dhurandhar’ crosses Rs 1000 crore mark

The film crossed the Rs 1000 crore gross mark during its fourth weekend and has since overtaken the Prabhas and Deepika Padukone starrer, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ which had a total collection of Rs 1040 crore . It also beat the likes of Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Pathaan’ total collection of Rs 1055 crore to become the seventh biggest Indian grosser of all time. The film is now chasing the lifetime collections of Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Jawan’ which earned Rs 1160 crore. Should it be able to hit the mark the end of this week, the film would go on to become the biggest Bollywood grosser of all time.

‘Dhurandhar’ global box office

At this pace, ‘Dhurandhar’ is heading towards a lifetime global box office collection of Rs 1200 crore. As per sacnilk, the film can look forward to ending its theatrical run as the fourth biggest Indian grosser of all time, and possibly even overtake the south blockbusters like ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ which earned Rs 1215 crore and ‘RRR’ whcih earned an impressive Rs 1230 crore.

‘Dhurandhar’ highest fourth week box office

The film that has so far scored a current week 4 total of Rs 68 crore, has also gone on to add a page to the history books and register the biggest fourth week at the Hindi box office. The film has now comfortably surpassed Allu Arjun’s ‘Pushpa 2 – The Rule’, which earned an estimated Rs 53.75 crore net in its fourth week.