Uddhav Thackeray takes oath as legislator, enters state legislative council

Udhdav Thackeray was accompanied by his wife Rashmi and son Aaditya at the oath ceremony held in the Central Hall of the state legislature. He was one among the nine candidates belonging to the ruling coalition of Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and opposition party who were declared elected unopposed to the council last week.

Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday took oath as a member of the legislative council (MLC) at the Vidhan Bhavan. This is the first time a Sena chief became a member of the state legislature and he is the second from the Thackeray family to become a member of the assembly after his son Aaditya Thackeray.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray taking oath as a member of legislative council on Monday afternoon in the Central Hall of the state legislature.

Thackeray was accompanied by his wife Rashmi and son Aaditya at the oath ceremony held in the Central Hall of the state legislature. He was one among the nine candidates belonging to the ruling coalition of Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and opposition party who were declared elected unopposed to the council last week.

His election to the House was crucial for him to continue as the CM, as he had to fulfill the constitutional requirement of becoming a member of either of the Houses before May 27-- six months from the day he took oath as the chief minister.

Speaking to reporters outside Vidhan Bhavan, Shiv Sena MP and party secretary Vinayak Raut, said, “All Shiv Sainiks are proud that their leader is taking oath as a legislator today. The state has got good leadership [under Thackeray].”

Besides Thackeray, eight new members of Maharashtra Legislative Council -- Shiv Sena’s Neelam Gorhe, Nationalist Congress Party ‘s (NCP) Shashikant Shinde, Amol Mitkari, Congress’s Rajesh Rathod and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Pravin Datke, and Ramesh Karad also took an oath.

In toal, 14 candidates were in the fray for the MLC election but later four -- two each from the BJP and the NCP -- withdrew their nomination, while an independent candidate’s nomination was rejected.

With the election on the nine seats of the upper house pushed back because of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), political uncertainty loomed over the state on how to get Thackeray elected to the council.

The state cabinet had recommended that Thackeray should be nominated by Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, as the MLC polls were deferred due to the pandemic. But the governor did not take the decision, prompting Thackeray to raise the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Later, the MVA constituents and Governor Koshyari wrote to the Election Commission to hold the legislative council polls.