Celebrations broke out at the Taj President hotel where former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and other BJP legislators were housed as Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the Chief Minister’s post and stepped down as a member of the Vidhan Parishad. After 30 months of waiting since Fadnavis resigned from the post after remaining Chief Minister for only a week, the BJP leader, along with the state party unit chief Chandrakant Patil, are attending a legislative meeting to chart out the future course of action. Fadnavis is expected to reach the Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form the government, according to reports. However, when he is going to stake claim is still not clear.
Just after the Supreme Court refused to stay the floor test, Thackeray, in a first, stepped down from the Chief Minister’s post on social media. Thackeray will shortly be submitting his resignation letter to the Governor at the Raj Bhavan. Uddhav said that there were only four Shiv Sena ministers present with him in the cabinet meet. While asking the rebel MLAs to return to Mumbai as there is no threat to their lives, Thackeray said, “You have managed to bring down the son of Balasaheb.” After the cabinet gave an official nod to rename Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar and Osmanabad to Dharashiv, Thackeray, in a reference to the ‘rebel’ Shiv Sena legislators, said, “The ones who wanted the renaming of these places are not present with me, the ones who opposed it all along were present with me ironically.”
The development came moments after the Supreme Court refused to stay the floor test that was directed by the Governor earlier in the day. The top court was hearing a petition moved by the Shiv Sena’s chief whip Sunil Prabhu against the Governor’s order to summon a special session to decide whether the Uddhav Thackeray government still shared the confidence of the state legislature. The Governor had written to Secretary, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Rajendra Bhagat, asking for the floor test to be concluded by 5 pm on Thursday.
