Devendra Fadnavis elected as BJP's legislative party leader in Maharashtra; to be sworn in as CM on Dec 5

Devendra Fadnavis. File Pic

Former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was suggested and unanimously approved as the BJP's legislative party leader by the MLAs. Fadnavis is now the Chief Minister-elect of Maharashtra and will be administered the oath of office on Thursday.

Chandrakant Patil formally proposed Devendra Fadnavis' name for the Chief Minister's position, with support from Sudhir Mungantiwar, Pankaja Munde, Pravin Darekar, Ravindra Chavan, Sanjay Kute, and others. The proposal was met with overwhelming approval from 137 MLAs, including 132 from the BJP and 5 independent allies.

Earlier, a crucial legislature party meeting of the BJP was held on Wednesday to elect its leader, who is expected to take over as the next chief minister of the state.

The MLAs officially approved the name suggested by the Core Committee.

Leaders who were part of the meeting were Nirmala Sitharaman, Vijay Rupani, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Devendra Fadnavis, Vinod Tawade, Ashish Shelar, Amar Sable, Chandrakant Patil, Ashok Chavan, Raosaheb Danve and Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil.

Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is being seen as the frontrunner for the top post in the new BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP Mahayuti government.

The BJP legislature party leader elected in the meeting is then expected to meet the governor to stake a claim to form the new government in the state.

The BJP achieved remarkable success in the November 20 Maharashtra elections, securing 132 out of 288 seats, marking its best performance in the state so far.

Together with its allies -- the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar's NCP, the Mahayuti coalition has a commanding majority of 230 seats.

On Tuesday, Fadnavis met caretaker Chief Minister Eknath Shinde at his official residence, 'Varsha,' here, the first in-person meeting since their discussions in Delhi last week for government formation.

While the hour-long meeting's details remain unclear, some political observers view it as an outreach effort by the BJP to placate an ally that is weighing its options, while others believe it served as a preliminary discussion regarding the swearing-in ceremony set for December 5.

Preparations were in full swing for the swearing-in ceremony to be held on Thursday at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as nearly 2,000 VVIPs and 40,000 supporters.

Several Union ministers and 19 chief ministers and deputy CMs of various states are also expected to attend the ceremony.