Devendra Fadnavis Takes Oath As Maharashtra CM, Eknath Shinde And Ajit Pawar As His Deputies After Mahayuti's Victory

Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Chief Minister (CM) of Maharashtra on Thursday (5 December) after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 132 seats in the 288-seat assembly election held on 20 November.

Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawat took oath after him as deputy CMs of Maharashtra. Shinde remembered Balasaheb Thackeray on the occasion.

The cabinet expansion is likely to happen later as only these three leaders took oath. Shiv Sena 57 and NCP 41 in the assembly election, taking the Mahayuti's total to 230.

This means the ruling coalition occupies almost 80 per cent of the assembly seats, leaving the opposition Mahayuti Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in such a position that no opposition party has enough seats to appoint a leader of the opposition.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jyotiraditya Scindia were present during the oath ceremony.