Shinde Seals Trust Vote: Several Congress, NCP MLAs Absent, Aaditya Thackeray Reaches in Nick of Time

For Maharashtra’s new chief minister Eknath Shinde, winning the trust vote may have been a breeze as he was confident of the numbers on his side, but the process was not short of drama as has been the case since the day the Uddhav Thakre-led government fell.

Newly elected speaker Rahul Narwekar had asked the doors of the assembly to be closed by 11 am and that all legislators had to be present before the scheduled time.

Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray rushed in with just a few seconds to spare before the doors of the assembly closed. He voted against the Shinde government and, just as the address by the CM began thanking the MLAs for their vote of confidence, the young Thackeray walked out.

This was the second time the junior Thackeray made a point of walking out when chief minister Eknath Shinde was addressing the house. On Sunday, after the election of the speaker, when Shinde stood up to thank the house, Aaditya got up from his seat and left the Vidhan Sabha. He, along with the legislators who violated the whip issued by Shiv Sena chief whip Bharat Gogawale, may now face disqualification proceedings.

On Monday, eight legislators including two senior Congressmen, Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar, walked into the assembly late, while six others did not turn up, fuelling speculation on the reason. Of the six who did not show up, three— Congress’s Zeeshan Siddique and Dhiraj Deshmukh, and NCP’s Sangram Jagtap— who were present for the voting of the speaker a day earlier, were absent.

Interestingly, neither the Congress nor the NCP issued a whip for the trust motion.

While Congress MLA Praniti Shinde is travelling in New York and has not been in Maharashtra for the past two days, Jitesh Antapurkar got married on Sunday and could not join the proceedings.

Other Congress leaders who were not present were Kunal Patil, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, and Shirish Chaudhari.

Eknath Shinde comfortably won the trust vote, with 164 votes in his government’s favour and 99 against.

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