Mumbai / I'm still with Hindutva ideology and won't ever leave it: Uddhav

Hindustan Times : Dec 01, 2019, 05:54 PM
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that he will not refer to his predecessor, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Devendra Fadnavis as opposition leader despite his appointment as leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly.

In a speech on the second day of the special two-day session of the assembly, Thackeray hinted that he blames the BJP for the end of the Shiv Sena’s three-decade alliance with it.

“I won’t call you (Devendra Fadnavis) an ‘Opposition leader’, but I will call you a ‘responsible leader’. If you would have been good to us then, all this (BJP-Shiv Sena split) would have not happened… I have learnt a lot of things from Devendra Fadvanis and I will always be friends with him,” he said according to ANI.

Earlier Sunday, Congress MLA Nana Patole who was elected Speaker of the House unopposed, announced that Fadnavis will be the leader of the opposition. The BJP with 105 members is the largest party in the 288-member House.

The Shiv Sena and the BJP had parted ways bitterly last month over a tug of war over chief ministership. The political impasse saw Maharashtra come under a brief spell of President’s Rule before it was revoked in the early hours of November 23 following which Fadnavis was sworn in as chief minister while NCP’s Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy chief minister.

Fadnavis’s second term as chief minister lasted just 80 hours as he chose to resign on November 26 instead of facing a floor test that the Supreme Court had ordered for November 27.

Following Fadnavis’ resignation, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi coalition comprising the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress chose Sena boss Thackeray as its chief ministerial candidate.

Thackeray was sworn in at Mumbai’s iconic Shivaji Park on Thursday. Two ministers each form the coalition partners also took oath on Thursday. Thackeray is not a member of the House.

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