It was the last-minute firefighting by both chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray that resulted in avoiding embarrassment for the government and Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar was elected unopposed as the tenth chairman of the legislative council.
It was the last-minute firefighting by both chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray that resulted in avoiding embarrassment for the government and Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar was elected unopposed as the tenth chairman of the legislative council.
Whether the Sena would be able to expose BJP-NCP understanding, would Sena join hands with Congress to support its own Independent and would BJP openly support NCP were a few questions which had made this election interesting. But all these questions were answered when Congress and Shiv Sena withdrew their candidates and Naik-Nimbalkar was elected with voice vote.
It was expected that both Congress and Shiv Sena would try their best to expose their respective alliance partners of their unholy alliance for the sake of the post of chairman and deputy chairman in the Upper House. But, if sources are to be believed, a sense of wisdom prevailed when Fadnavis in his two telephonic calls to Matoshree, the residence of Thackeray, succeeded in convincing the Sena chief that enough was enough. Fadnavis and Thackeray ultimately agreed on one point that increasing strain in the Sena-BJP relations was giving a wrong signal to the public and this atmosphere of distrust can further deteriorate the position of their government.
Sources informed that both Fadnavis and Thackeray discussed all the issues, including that of the ensuing Bandra (East) assembly segment by-election and the possibility of giving Sena the post of deputy chairman in the legislative council. It is learnt that the Sena chief also pointed out to the chief minister that his cabinet was still short of 12 ministers than the stipulated number of 42.
Dr Neelam Gorhe, spokesperson and candidate for the election to the chairman's post, informed the House during her speech that Thackeray had a telephonic conversation with Fadnavis this morning. Following this a meeting of Sena leaders was held and they decided to withdraw her candidature to make the election of Naik-Nimbalkar unopposed and unanimous.
Soon after the question hour in the legislative council on Friday, deputy chairman Vasant Davkhare, who was presiding in the House, announced the item of chairman election on the agenda. Congress MLC Ramhari Roopnavar, who had proposed the name of Congress candidate Sharad Ranpise, announced that he was withdrawing his proposal. Later, Sena MLC Anil Parab announced that he was also withdrawing his proposal of candidature of Gorhe for the election. NCP state unit president and MLC Sunil Tatkare then proposed the candidature of MLC Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar for the election to the post of chairman and the proposal was put for voice voting.
Davkhare, after asking the House to go for voice vote, announced that Naik-Nimbalkar was elected to the post with unanimous voice-vote.
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