Mumbai: In a fast-moving kaleidoscopic turn of events, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputy Ajit Pawar, on Tuesday, resigned their posts, hours after the Supreme Court’s directed them for a floor test on Wednesday.
In an early morning event, Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar had taken oath only on Saturday last and had to resign barely 80 hours later.
Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray is likely to be elected leader of the SS-NCP-combine. He may take oath on Wednesday as the next CM.
Earlier, the Governor nominated eight-term BJP MLA from Mumbai, Kalidas Kolambkar, as the pro-tem speaker to administer oath to the newly-elected legislators. The Governor has also called a special session of the Assembly on Wednesday morning for the purpose.
Addressing a press conference here, Fadnavis said Ajit Pawar had resigned earlier in the day.
“After Pawar’s resignation we don’t have the majority. We will not do any horse trading,” Fadnavis said.
He said he formed the government only after NCP leader Ajit Pawar joined hands with the BJP. “We believed that the entire NCP was coming with us,” he said.
Fadnavis said the BJP will now sit in the Opposition. He also claimed the “only agenda” of the Sena-NCP-Congress combine was their common hunger of power.
“The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) was put together by the three parties just to keep the BJP out of power,” he said adding that the next government will be buried under weight of its own complications.
