Maharashtra CMs have rarely lasted full term

Completing a full term as Chief Minister of Maharashtra has always eluded the incumbent leader due to various reasons from controversies to factionalism in the ruling party.

Completing a full term as Chief Minister of Maharashtra has always eluded the incumbent leader due to various reasons from controversies to factionalism in the ruling party.

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The latest being Ashok Chavan forced to step down after he was linked to the Adarsh housing scam soon after completing a year in office.

Ashok Chavan replaced Vilasrao Deshmukh who found himself in trouble when his actor son and a filmmaker accompanied him during a visit to Taj hotel, among the sites of the 26/11 terror attacks.

Chavan was sworn in as the CM on December 4, 2008 cutting short Deshmukh's tenure and again took oath in November 7, 2009 after the Congress-NCP combine won the state polls.

Deshmukh served from October 18, 1999 to January 16, 2003 and November 1, 2004 to November 5, 2008 in his first and second terms respectively.

Only Vasantrao Naik served the longest term of 12 years as the CM from December 5, 1963 to February 20, 1975. But none of the leaders have been able to break his record.

Manohar Joshi from Shiv Sena and Deshmukh fell short a few months to complete the five years. However, Deshmukh's total tenure was of over seven years, as he became the CM twice. Even then Congressman Sharad Pawar served for over seven years as the CM but in three different terms.

Joshi was in CMO from March 14, 1995 to January 31, 1999. He was forced to leave for allegedly being involved in allotting a plot reserved for a primary school at Pune to his developer son-in-law Girish Vyas.