Devendra Fadnavis all set to be sworn in as Maharashtra CM for third time

PM Modi, NDA chief ministers to attend swearing-in at Azad Maidan today

Twelve days after the results of the Maharashtra Assembly polls were declared, the Mahayuti on Wednesday staked claim to form the next government with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis set to be sworn in as the chief minister for a third time on Thursday.

 

Fadnavis, along with allies, Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde, who is the caretaker CM, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar, met Governor C P Radhakrishnan on Wednesday who invited him to form the next government. The swearing-in ceremony will take place at 5.30 pm Mumbai’s historic Azad Maidan on Thursday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, CM’s of National Democratic Alliance-ruled states and Union ministers set to attend.

 

At their interaction with the media after their meeting with the Governor, Shinde evaded reply when asked whether he will join the government. "Wait till evening," said the Shiv Sena president who was chief minister of the Mahayuti government from July 2022 onwards. Ajit Pawar interjected, saying he was going to take oath.

 

Fadnavis said that all the Mahayuti leaders want Shinde to be a part of the government, and expressed the hope that he would accept the request. He said that besides the Sena and NCP, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Jansurajya Shakti Party, Yuva Swabhiman Paksh's Ravi Rana and two other independent MLAs have given him letters of support.

 

"The chief minister’s post is a technical arrangement. All three of us (Shinde, Pawar and himself) will work together," Fadnavis said. "I and two deputy chief ministers will take oath (during the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday evening). It is yet to be decided how many ministers will take oath," Fadnavis said. Seeking to quell speculation that Shinde was unhappy, Fadnavis said he met the latter on Tuesday evening to invite him to join the government.

 

Credited with leading his party to its best ever performance in the Maharashtra Assembly, winning 132 seats, a mere dozen seats short of the halfway mark, 54-year-old Fadnavis has been sworn in as the CM on two previous occasions. He was the Maharashtra CM from 2014 to 2019. He was also sworn in as the CM in the shortlived government after the 2019 Assembly polls, with Ajit Pawar as his deputy.

 

Maharashtra has had 20 CMs until now. Of these, a dozen have belonged to the Maratha community, including YB Chavan, Sharad Pawar, Vasantdada Patil, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Eknath Shinde. Of the rest, two Brahmins have been the CM, including Manohar Joshi and Fadnavis, as has been a Dalit (Sushilkumar Shinde), a Muslim (AR Antulay) and a Kayastha (Uddhav Thackeray).    

 

Earlier in the day, speaking at a meeting of the BJP legislature party, which elected Fadnavis as its leader, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman accused the past "Congress-led government" of stalling key infrastructure projects in Maharashtra including the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train and Mumbai Metro car shed in Aarey Colony. Sitharaman, along with former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani, was present as a central observer.

 

The FM said a “double engine” government in Maharashtra will deliver development to the state, and referred to key central government initiatives for the state, such as the Rs 76,000 crore Vadhavan port project and recognition of Marathi as a classical language.