Maharashtra Assembly: Fadnavis, Eknath Shinde, Ajit Pawar take oath as MLAs; Opposition boycott ‘doubting EVMs’

A three-day special session of the Maharashtra Assembly commenced on Saturday and the newly elected members took oath as MLAs today. The opposition boycotted the event raising doubts over electronic voting machines and results of the assembly election.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar took oath as members of the Maharashtra Assembly on Saturday.  Pro-tem speaker Kalidas Kolambkar administered the oath to the newly elected members. The assembly will elect its new speaker on Monday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance won the election by a landslide, with the party alone winning over 130 seats in polls conducted to the 288-seat assembly. The BJP, along with allies Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and Nationalist Congress Party (AP) won 230 seats in the election. The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi won less than 60 seats.

Chief Minister Fadnavis and Deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar paid tributes to Chhatrapati Shivaji after the ceremony.

The opposition abstained from Saturday’s ceremony raising doubts over the functioning of EVMs and the election results. “Today, we have decided that our (Shiv Sena UBT) winning MLAs will not take oath. If this was the mandate of the people, people would have been happy and celebrated it, but people did not celebrate this victory anywhere. We have doubts about EVM,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray told reporters outside the assembly. He charged the assembly election results were not mandate of the public.

However, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar rubbished the claims and said, “There is no point in making such allegations. Opposition should go to the Election Commission and if they do not get justice there, they should approach the court,” ANI reported.