CM Uddhav Thackeray takes oath as member of Council

Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday took oath as a member of the legislative Council (MLC) at Vidhan Bhavan. This is the first

Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday took oath as a member of the legislative Council (MLC) at Vidhan Bhavan. This is the first time that the Sena chief has become a member of the state legislature. He is the second one from the Thackeray family to be inducted in the legislature after his son Aaditya Thackeray.

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Thackeray was accompanied by his wife Rashmi and son Aaditya at the oath-taking ceremony held in the Central Hall, Vidhan Bhavan. He is one of the nine candidates who were declared elected unopposed to the Council last week for a term of six years.

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

After the ceremony, Thackeray, along with wife Rashmi, son Aaditya and chief secretary Ajoy Mehta, went to Raj Bhavan and met governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari as a courtesy call.

Besides Thackeray, the other new members of the 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 oath.

There were initially a total of 14 candidates in the fray for the nine MLC seats, but later four candidates – two each from the BJP and NCP – withdrew their nomination, while an independent candidate’s nomination was rejected, thus paving way for all remaining candidates to be elected unopposed.

The election for the nine seats was pushed back owing to the Covid-19 outbreak, thus bringing political uncertainty over the state. The state cabinet had recommended that Thackeray should be nominated by Maharashtra governor as the MLC polls were deferred to maintain stability of the state government. However, as the governor did not take the decision, Thackeray was prompted 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.