CM Eknath Shinde takes a dig at Sharad Pawar’s mid-term polls remark

After comfortably winning the trust vote on the heels Speaker’s election victory, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday hit back at NCP chief Sharad Pawar after the latter raised serious doubts over the survival of the Shinde-Fadnavis government. Predicting the fall of the newly-formed government, Pawar has asked his party legislators to pay more attention to their respective constituencies and gear up for mid-term election.

In a riposte, Shinde said, “Sharad Pawar is a big leader, but whatever he says is just the opposite of fact. So, we will complete 2.5 years of governance. Next time, we will have 200 MLAs; 100 ours (Shiv Sena led by him) and 100 BJP's.”

Shinde, who was accompanied by his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, further said, “All MLAs who voted in our favour today will support Droupadi Murmu in the upcoming Presidential polls.’’

Claiming that “we are original Sena,’’ he underlined that he has the support of 50 Sena and 115 BJP MLAs and asserted that his government will take decisions in the interest of the people. “This government is of people's mandate, which couldn't be formed 2.5 years back due to some reasons,” he remarked.

Shinde said his government will try to get all pending projects completed as soon as possible. “I've seen deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis' decision-making speed in the previous govt. He gets the pending work completed. In this govt as well, we'll try to get all pending projects completed as soon as possible; be it the metro project or Samruddhi Mahamarg,” he assured.

Shinde made it clear that the new government will not practice vendetta politics instead it would take the Opposition on board in expediting the development process.

He even warned the Uddhav Thackeray camp of action for violating their whip. “We'll see about the cabinet expansion. They (Uddhav Thackeray camp) are regularly going to courts and even today they went to the Supreme Court. Bharat Gogawale is our whip and I am the legislative party leader. Action will be taken against those who violated our whip,” he said.

Responding to the Amravati murder case, Shinde said, "The accused have been arrested. Now, the case is being taken over by the NIA."

Fadnavis said, "CM proposed the confidence motion and we have secured a huge victory with 164 votes in our favour. Yesterday, our speaker cast a vote in our favour. Today our speaker was in the chair. But, Santosh Bangar has returned back to Shiv Sena."

‘’We passed a confidence motion again in favour of the speaker. Yesterday at 12 o'clock our speaker was elected, and later after two minutes, the no-confidence motion was moved against the speaker,’’ he noted.

"If Bharat Gogawale (chief whip of Shinde camp) wants, he can move for the disqualification of the Sena MLAs who disobeyed his whip yesterday. Our session is scheduled for the 18th. But on the 18th there are Presidential polls. Hence it might not be possible to hold the session from that day," he added.