BJP Walks Out, 4 Other MLAs Abstain
WEB DESK
As many as 169 MLAs of Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) today voted in favour of the motion of confidence, while zero against it, four abstained and 105 BJP MLAs walked out during voting.
BJP leader and former CM Devendra Fadnavis today said that they will submit a letter to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari asking him to suspend the proceedings of the House.
Pro tem speaker Dilip Walse Patil rejected Fadnavis’ claim of an ‘illegal session’, saying it is being held as per governor’s directions. The Uddhav Thackeray-led government, meanwhile, has cleared the face floor test, despite four MLAs abstaining and BJP legislators walking out of the House.
BJP’s Maharashtra unit chief Chandrakant Patil said that the party would approach Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari over Maha Vikas Agadi’s move to change protem speaker. Terming it ‘legally wrong’, Patil said that the new government is violating rules. “We are filing petition with the governor, and might also approach the apex court,” he added.
Thackeray and six other ministers — two each from the Sena, the Congress and the NCP — took oath a day earlier with the new CM presiding over his government’s first cabinet meeting. The Shiv Sena chief may have become the CM but he is unlikely to move to Varsha — the chief minister’s official residence at Malabar Hill, a media report stated. The report said that Matoshree, the five decades-old residence of the Thackeray family, will control Maharashtra’s affairs. However, the CM will head all key meetings at Varsha and his office will be on the sixth floor of Mantralaya.