Mumbai: The new Maharashtra government, which came to power after Shiv Sena MLA Eknath Shinde's week-long rebellion brought the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government down, has won the crucial floor test that started Monday morning.
In the 288-member House, 164 MLAs voted for the motion of confidence, while 99 voted against it. Speaker Rahul Narvekar who was elected on Sunday announced that the trust vote has been carried by a majority vote. After the death of a Shiv Sena MLA recently, the current strength of the Assembly is reduced to 287, thus the majority mark is 144.
During the floor test, MLAs Abu Azmi and Rais Shaikh (both of the Samajwadi Party) and Shah Farukh Anwar (AIMIM) abstained from voting. Eleven Congress MLAs - Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadettiwar, Dheeraj Deshmukh, Praniti Shinde, Jitesh Antapurkar, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Kunal Patil, Madhavrao Jawalgaonkar and Shirish Chaudhary - were absent during the floor test. Chavan and Wadettiwar came late and were unable to enter the House at the time of the vote.
The NCP legislators absent from the House were - Anil Deshmukh, Nawab Malik, Dattatray Bharane, Anna Bansode, Babandada Shinde and Sangram Jagtap. Deshmukh and Malik are currently in jail following arrest in separate money laundering cases. The BJP MLAs - Mukta Tilak and Laxman Jagtap - both of whom are seriously ill, also did not come to the House, while BJP's Rahul Narvekar could not vote as he is the Speaker. AIMIM legislator Mufti Mohammad Ismail also did not attend the session.
Just prior to the floor test, Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar who had been an Uddhav loyalist so far switched sides and joined the Shinde camp minutes before the floor test in the Assembly. The Uddhav faction has moved the Supreme Court challenging the newly appointed Maharashtra Assembly Speaker's action of recognising the whip of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde group as the whip of Shiv Sena. The apex court has will be hearing the matter on July 11.
Shinde was sworn in as CM on June 30, a day after Uddhav Thackeray quit the post. BJP's Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the deputy CM. (With Agency inputs)
