Maharashtra: NCP-Congress-Shiv Sena move Supreme Court against government formation, seek urgent floor test

As Maharashtra witnessed an unexpected turn of events on Monday after Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the Chief Minister of the state, the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena alliance has filed a writ petition in Supreme Court in connection with government formation

Fadnavis on Saturday took oath as Maharashtra Chief Minister for his second term, and NCP's Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy chief minister. The oath was administered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhawan.

Ever since Maharashtra results were announced on October 24, reports were doing the rounds that there will be a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government. However, the three parties were working on the common minimum programme but had not reached to any conclusion.

NCP Chief made it clear on Friday that Congress and NCP wanted Uddhav Thackeray to be the Chief Minister if Sena-NCP-Congress government was formed in the state. Saturday came as a surprise when Devendra Fadnavis and Aji Pawar took oath as Chief Minister and Deputy CM.

After taking the oath, Devendra Fadnavis said, "People had given us a clear mandate but Shiv Sena tried to ally with other parties after results, as a result, President's rule was imposed. Maharashtra needed a stable government and not a 'khichdi' government."

His deputy Ajit Pawar said, "From result day to this day no party was able to form the government, Maharashtra was facing many problems including farmer issues, so we decided to form a stable government."

BJP and Shiv Sena fought the elections together and had a comfortable majority to form the government but the two parties didn't reach any consensus on the '50-50 formula' that led to the break-up of ties.

Shiv Sena has 56 seats in the Maharashtra Assembly, way below the half-way mark of 144, it needed both the NCP's 54 and Congress' 44 legislators to reach the magic number.

President's rule was imposed on Maharashtra after no party was able to form the government even 20 days after assembly election results which were declared on October 24.