Eknath Shinde To Be New Maharashtra Chief Minister, Oath At 7:30 PM

Mumbai: In an interesting turn of events, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday announced that Shiv Sena rebel leader Eknath Shinde will be the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

Fadnavis further said that he will stay out of government and ensure the same runs smoothly.

''Shinde will be sworn in at 7:30 pm. No other minister will take oath today,'' the BJP leader said during a press conference.

Earlier in the afternoon, Fadnavis and Shinde met Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and staked claim to power.

After meeting the Governor, Fadnavis slammed Uddhav Thackeray-led state government in the press conference and said that in this government no work was carried out.

''The works which were already started, they were trying to complete them slowly. The Thackeray government was trying to keep people associated with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim gang in its cabinet,'' Fadnavis alleged.

Fadnavis also said that there are certain things that were opposed by Balasaheb Thackeray throughout his life and instead of carrying the same forward his son (Uddhav) supported those things and compromised with the ideology.

Earlier, Shinde who came to Mumbai nearly after 10 days, directly went to Fadnavis's house from the airport.

Later there, both the leaders met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, where, Shinde handed over the letter of support of 49 MLAs to the Governor and staked claim to form the government in the state.

After Uddhav Thackeray's resignation as Maharashtra Chief Minister on Wednesday night, there were speculations that the leader of opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Devendra Fadnavis will be sworn in as the 20th Chief Minister of the state tomorrow.

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