Eknath Shinde's rebellion erupted on the night of June 20
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde breezed through the majority test in the Assembly today, capping two weeks of political turmoil that split the Shiv Sena and brought down the Uddhav Thackeray government.
Here are the top 10 updates on this big story
"Now we are 165, next time 200 will come," new Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said in his address. "This is a promise... If not, I'll go back to my village and start farming with my grandson," he added, speaking after he proved his government's majority on the Assembly floor in a vote by head count.
The Eknath Shinde camp received 164 votes in the 288-member assembly, way above the simple majority mark of 144. Only 99 MLAs voted against it -- down from the 107 votes the Opposition scraped up during the voting for the Speaker's post yesterday.
While one Sena MLA switched to the Shinde camp, 20 MLAs – from the Congress and the Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party -- were absent during voting.
Congress' Vijay Wadettiwar, Zeeshan Siddiqui and Dheeraj Deshmukh did not show up, and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan reached after the vote. NCP's Sangram Jagtap was missing too.
The Congress claimed many of its MLAs were not allowed to enter the assembly. "As you can see in this picture all of us congress MLA's were in the vidhanbhavan together in the lobby but weren't allowed to enter and vote as the gates shut a couple of minutes before," tweeted Congress MLA Zeeshan Siddique.
The Eknath Shinde faction has given a petition to the newly elected Speaker Rahul Narwekar to suspend 16 MLAs of Uddhav Thackeray faction for defying the whip. Mr Shinde has claimed to be the real Shiv Sena, with the support of more than two-thirds of the party MPs.
The name of Aaditya Thackeray – former minister and the son of Uddhav Thackeray – was not included in the disqualification list. The chief whip of the faction, Bharat Gogawale, said it was out of "respect" for party founder Balasaheb Thackeray reported news agency ANI.
Minutes before the trust vote today, Team Thackeray MLA Santosh Bangar joined the Eknath Shinde camp, which now has 40 Shiv Sena MLAs.
Ajit Pawar – Sharad Pawar's nephew and a key leader of his Nationalist Congress Party – will be the Leader of the Opposition.
Team Thackeray has filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court challenging the new Speaker's decision to recognise the new party whip of Shiv Sena faction led by Mr Shinde. The court will hear it on July 11. Their petition regarding the disqualification of 16 MLAs is already pending in the court. The notice was issued last month by the Deputy Speaker.
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