A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde won the Vote of Confidence in the Maharashtra Assembly, the Shiv Sena termed the victory as ‘stolen majority’
Days after BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the new Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday took a jibe at him asking who was the person who stopped him from taking oath as the Chief Minister.
“Devendra Fadnavis has thanked the invisible forces that made the majority test successful. He gave a speech on how strong, great leader Shinde is, but who is the invisible force stopping Fadnavis from taking oath as the chief minister?” questioned the Shiv Sena in its editorial mouthpiece Saamna today.
The Shiv Sena termed the victory as ‘stolen majority’ and said that it was ‘not the belief of the people’ of the state, a day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde won the Vote of Confidence in the Maharashtra Assembly.
“This question stands before Maharashtra. BJP and Shinde faction got the vote of confidence passed in the assembly, this is a stolen majority. This is not the belief of 11 crore people of Maharashtra,” it said.
The party further in ts editorial mouthpiece said, “At the time of floor test, the BJP-backed Shinde group was supported by 164 MLAs and 99 voted against it. Some MLAs of Congress, NCP were absent at the time of the majority test. It is surprising that senior ministers like Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar could not reach the assembly.”
The mouthpiece called Fadnavis’ remarks on his return ‘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. He should not forget that Eknath Shinde is the Chief Minister. There is a change of power in Maharashtra where the love of principles, morals and ideas is also not visible,” it said.
The Shiv Sena mouthpiece also slammed MLA Santosh Bangar who jumped ship from the Uddhav Thackeray side 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 favour of Shiv Sena till the election for the post of Speaker of the Assembly and what happened in the 24 hours that he joined the vamp of the ‘loyal’ Shinde faction at the time of the vote of confidence?”
Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde proved his government’s majority on the floor of the assembly on Monday by winning the trust vote with ease and completing the arc on an unlikely rebellion that began exactly three weeks ago and led to the collapse of the previous government.
In the 287-member assembly, Shinde — who has 39 other Shiv Sena dissidents backing him, in addition to the Bharatiya Janata Party — secured 164 votes.
Still smarting from the collapse of its government last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) could only muster 99 votes. In the 24 hours between the Speaker’s election and the trust vote, the MVA lost eight more lawmakers — it got 107 votes in the Sunday election but only 99 on Monday — underlining the daily disintegration in the three-party alliance.
After winning the trust vote, Shinde made an emotional address and repeated that his was the real Shiv Sena, not the faction led by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The BJP-Shinde alliance also passed a confidence motion in favour of speaker Rahul Narwekar, empowering him to act against the 15 Sena MLAs. This is to counter the no-confidence motion against Narwekar that was moved by the Shiv Sena on Sunday.
Except for the Speaker who was presiding over the proceedings, 20 lawmakers 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 graft charges), two from the BJP, and one from the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). In addition, three legislators — two from the Samajwadi Party and one from AIMIM — abstained from voting though they were present in the House.
The House proceedings concluded with the election of former deputy CM, NCP’s Ajit Pawar, as the leader of opposition in assembly.
The trust vote victory brought proceedings a full circle for Shinde, who set off with a group of loyal lawmakers on June 20, hours after the then MVA government suffered a setback in the legislative council elections.
He and his loyalists camped in a hotel in Surat, before flying to Guwahati and staying for 11 days there — even as the ranks of the rebels swelled with almost daily desertions from Thackeray’s camp. The government finally fell on June 29 after the Supreme Court refused to suspend a trust vote called by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
Shinde took oath as CM on June 30, with former CM Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.
Source:livemint.com