Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Ajit Pawar on Monday, 4 July, was elected as the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Maharashtra Assembly.
Earlier today, the Eknath Shinde-Bharatiya Janata (BJP) government proved majority in the Assembly floor test and crossed the midway mark (144) after getting 164 votes in their favour.
Ninety-nine votes were counted by head count against the trust vote from the Opposition benches.
After the floor test, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis congratulated Shinde and said, “I’ve come back today and brought him (Eknath Shinde) along with me. I won’t take revenge on people who mocked me. I’ll forgive them, everything isn’t taken to heart in politics.”
Meanwhile, Bharat Gogawale, newly appointed chief whip of Shiv Sena, from the rebel faction, on Monday, gave a petition to the Assembly Speaker for the suspension of 16 MLAs of the party (from the Uddhav Thackeray faction) for violation of whip.
In a blow to the Thackeray camp, a day before the crucial trust vote, speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, Rahul Narvekar had removed Shiv Sena MLA Ajay Chaudhary as the legislative party leader.
