Uddhav Thackeray to face trust vote today

Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra chief minister will face trust vote today in the Assembly following the House meets at Vidhan Bhavan. Smooth sailing is expected in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of Sena-Congress-NCP alliance.

The Assembly will sit for two days and tomorrow Speaker’s election will be held before tabling of motion of thanks on the Governor B S Koshyar’s address.

The elected Speaker will thereafter announce name of Leader of Opposition in the House.

Maharashtra is a 288-member Assembly and the Uddhav Thackeray-led government has claimed to be getting support of 162 plus MLAs.

In the October 21 elections BJP emerged as the single largest party with 105 seats and its pre-poll ally, the Shiv Sena, fell out over failed negotiations on chief ministership office sharing in half-half tenure.

Sena moved towards Congress with 44 seats and NCP 54 seats for support. Uddhav Thackeray was sworn-in on Thursday evening as state chief minister. Six more ministers were sworn-in on the day, two each from Sena, NCP and Congress.

Uddhav becomes the first from Thackeray family to become the chief minister and it is learned he will not be moving to the CM’s official residence at Malabar Hill. He will be controlling the affairs of Maharashtra from his Matoshree residence.

Uddhav’s decision reflects he is seeking more to stick to his comfort zone.