New Delhi: Putting an end to a week-long political crisis in Maharashtra, rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde took oath as chief minister of the state on June 30. BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy chief minister.
The oath-taking ceremony came a day after former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray resigned his post in the wake of a major rebellion in the Shiv Sena legislators that led to the collapse of the 31-month-old Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
After a string of fast-paced developments, the BJP decided to support a minority government headed by Shinde from outside.
Shinde and Fadnavis held their first cabinet meeting shortly after the oath-taking ceremony ended. They announced a special session of the Assembly on July 2 and 3. Polls will be held to elect the new speaker along with a trust vote.
Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Udhhav Thackeray, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar congratulated Eknath Shinde on becoming the new CM and Devendra Fadnavis on taking oath as the deputy chief minister.
Uddhav Thackeray tweeted, “Congratulations to the newly appointed Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde Ji and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Ji for the future. I wish you a good job in Maharashtra!”
NCP chief Sharad Pawar said, “I spoke with Eknath Shinde and extended my greetings. I also expressed my expectation that the head of a state leads the entire state and not just a party. You might represent a party, but after taking the oath, you represent the state. So, I expect him to work to resolve issues of all departments.”
Unethical capture of yet another govt: Congress
Congress has mounted an attack on the BJP over the formation of a government in Maharashtra. Party General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said that the BJP has captured another government with a naked display of money and muscle power.
“The BJP has undemocratically and unethically captured yet another state government. Under the Modi-Shah duo, the BJP wants to capture power at any cost, either directly or through remote control. What happened in Maharashtra is shameful for Indian democracy,” he said.
Ramesh said that since 2014, the prime focus of the BJP has been to bring down elected governments in states rather than serve the public.
He said that in the year 2016, the BJP brought down the Congress government in Uttarakhand in a similar way. The government elected for 5 years was reduced to a minority in four years by engineering defections. The same year, in Arunachal Pradesh, 43 out of 44 Congress MLAs were made to defect to the BJP-backed Front — People’s Party of Arunachal, under the leadership of Chief Minister Pema Khandu.
