The Eknath Shinde government on Monday comfortably passed the majority mark with 164 votes, winning the trust vote after two weeks of political turmoil in Maharashtra.
While Eknath Shinde's camp received 164 votes, the Opposition camp got 99. Interestingly, the Opposition got 107 votes in the election for Speaker yesterday. While one switched to the Shinde camp, several MLAs did not show up for the vote.
Congress' Vijay Wadettiwar, Zeeshan Siddiqui, and Dheeraj Deshmukh did not show up today, and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan reached after the vote. NCP's Sangram Jagtap was missing too. All four were present yesterday.
Samajwadi Party's Abu Azmi and Rais Shaikh, and AIMIM's Shah Farukh Anwar abstained from voting.
Team Thackeray MLA Santosh Bangar joined the Eknath Shinde camp minutes before the trust vote. The Shinde camp now has a total of 40 Shiv Sena MLAs.
The test of strength came a day after BJP's Rahul Narwekar was elected Speaker -- a significant move in view of the Sena's pending legal appeal to disqualify 16 rebel MLAs, including the new Chief Minister.
Narwekar last night reinstated Shinde as the Shiv Sena's legislative party leader and also recognized the appointment of Gogawale as the chief whip of the Sena.
Meanwhile, the Uddhav Thackeray-faction of Shiv Sena on Monday moved a fresh plea in the Supreme against the decision of the assembly's speaker to recognize a new whip for the party.
Eknath Shinde's rebellion - which erupted on the night of June 20 -- had whittled down the numbers of the Uddhav Thackeray faction. On Wednesday, Thackeray stepped down from the top post after the Supreme Court said he has to prove a majority on the floor of the house, as ordered by the Governor.
A day later, Shinde was named the Chief Minister in a shock announcement by the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis. Later in the evening, in a further surprise, Fadnavis -- a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra -- signed up as Shinde's Deputy following pressure from the BJP brass.