Maharashtra Govt Formation: BJP In Full Throttle As Swearing-In Ceremony Scheduled On Dec 5 At Mumbai's Azad Maidan; CM Suspense Remains

Mumbai: The state BIP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Saturday declared that the new Government would be sworn in on December 5 in the presence of the Prime Minister at Azad Maidan.

The announcement of the time and the venue for the event comes even as the BIP finds it difficult to name a person for the chief minister’s post and when the party had not yet staked a claim to form the government and approached the Raj Bhavan to initiate the process of putting a new government in place.

Sources say that there would be a meeting on December 2 to selected its legislature party leader.

As things stand, Devendra Fadnavis has maintained a discreet silence as has the caretaker Eknath Shinde who has retreated to his village in Satara to fight, among other things, a cold and fever. His party MLAs - Sanjay Shirsar, Shambhuraj Desai, and Bharat Gogawale raised the political temperature on Saturday demanding the home ministry portfolio for their leader. This portfolio was held by the deputy chief minister in the earlier government and they argued that this should be entrusted to the new deputy CM.

This demand has not gone down well with the BJP which is intent on pressing on ahead, as evidenced by the announcement of the time and place of the swearing in.

On Saturday, the NCP chief Ajit Pawar brought a limited clarity to the situation by asserting in Pune that the next Chief Minister would be from the BJP and there would be two deputy chief ministers from the other Mahayuti constituents.