Days after BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the new deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday took a dig at him, asking who was the person who prevented him from taking oath as the chief minister.
“Devendra Fadnavis has thanked the invisible forces that made the majority test a success. He gave a speech about how strong, great leader Shinde is, but who is the invisible force stopping Fadnavis from taking oath as the chief minister?” Shiv Sena today questioned in its editorial mouthpiece Saamana.
A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde won the trust vote in the Maharashtra Assembly, the Shiv Sena termed the victory as an “outstanding majority” and said it was not the trust of the people of the state.
“This question stands before Maharashtra. BJP and Shinde faction got the trust vote in the assembly, it is a majority of theft. This is not the belief of 11 crore people of Maharashtra.”
The party in its editorial mouthpiece further said, “At the time of the floor test, the BJP-backed Shinde group had the support of 164 MLAs and 99 voted against it. Some MLAs of Congress, NCP were absent at the time of floor test. It is surprising that senior ministers like Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar could not make it to the assembly.
The mouthpiece described Fadnavis’s remarks on the return as “funny” and cautioned that he “should not forget” that Eknath Shinde is the chief minister.
I came again and brought others along, Devendra Fadnavis made such a statement on this occasion, which is funny. They should not forget that Eknath Shinde is the Chief Minister. Power change is taking place in Maharashtra, where even love of principles, morals and ideas is not visible.
The Shiv Sena mouthpiece also reprimanded MLA Santosh Bangar, who jumped on behalf of Uddhav Thackeray to the Eknath Shinde faction ahead of the trust vote.
It said, “The BJP-backed Shinde faction government has won the majority test in the assembly. MLA Santosh Bangar stood in favor of Shiv Sena till the election of Speaker’s post and what happened in 24 hours that he joined the party of ‘loyal’ Shinde faction at the time of trust vote?”
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde proved his government’s majority on the floor of the Assembly on Monday by easily winning a trust vote and ending the arc on an unexpected rebellion that began just three weeks ago and led to the collapse of the previous government.
In the 287-member assembly, Shinde – in whose support there are 39 other Shiv Sena dissidents, apart from the Bharatiya Janata Party – secured 164 votes.
Still smarter than the fall of its government last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) could garner only 99 votes. In the 24 hours between the president’s election and the trust vote, the MVA lost eight more MPs – it received 107 votes in Sunday’s election but only 99 on Monday – underscoring the daily disintegration in the three-party coalition.
After winning the trust vote, Shinde made an emotional address and reiterated that the real Shiv Sena was his and not the faction led by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The BJP-Shinde alliance also passed a confidence motion in favor of Speaker Rahul Narvekar, empowering him to take action against 15 Shiv Sena MLAs. This is to counter the no-confidence motion against Narvekar brought by Shiv Sena on Sunday.
Barring the Speaker presiding over the proceedings, 20 MLAs were absent – including 12 from the Congress, five from the Nationalist Congress Party (two former ministers, Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, are in jail on corruption charges), two. One from BJP, and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). Besides, three MLAs – two from Samajwadi Party and one from AIMIM – abstained from voting despite being present in the House.
The proceedings of the House ended with the election of Ajit Pawar of the NCP, a former Deputy CM, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.
The victory of the trust vote brought a full circle for Shinde, who installed the then MVA government on June 20 with a group of loyal MPs, hours after the setback in the Legislative Council elections.
He and his loyalists camped in a Surat hotel before flying to Guwahati and staying there for 11 days – even as the insurgents swelled with almost daily abandonment from Thackeray’s camp. The government finally fell on June 29 after the Supreme Court refused to postpone the trust vote called by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
Shinde took oath as CM on June 30 as deputy to former CM Devendra Fadnavis.