Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar will address a joint press conference at 12:30 pm on Saturday.
This comes after BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis earlier this morning took oath as the Maharashtra Chief Minister for the second consecutive term while NCP’s Ajit Pawar took oath as Deputy Chief Minister of the state. The oath was administered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to Fadnavis and Pawar at Raj Bhawan. Following the formation of the government, President’s Rule was revoked in Maharashtra.
The move came at a time when deliberations between Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena on government formation seemingly reached the final stage on Friday.
Earlier, Sharad Pawar had claimed that there was a consensus on Thackeray as chief minister of the alliance government.
The BJP, which emerged as the single largest party in last month’s assembly elections, could not stake claim to form a government as its ally Shiv Sena remained firm on rotating the Chief Minister’s post and equal sharing of Cabinet berths.
Shiv Sena parted its ways with BJP to explore ways to form a government. It, however, failed to prove the support of the required number of MLAs in the time given by Koshyari.
The Governor had then invited NCP, the third-largest party, to prove its ability to form the government failing which President’s Rule was imposed in the state.
The BJP won 105 seats in the 288-member assembly followed by Shiv Sena 56, NCP 54 and Congress 44.
Also read: Devendra Fadvanis back as CM in Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar deputy CM