Even as the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis-led alliance government won a landslide majority of 164-99 in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, more than a dozen legislators did not or could not vote.
The 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly now has an active strength of 287.
As many as 11 Congress MLAs – Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadettiwar, Dheeraj Deshmukh, Praniti Shinde, Jitesh Antapurkar, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Kunal Patil, Madhavrao Jawalgaonkar and Shirish Chaudhary – were absent during the floor test. However, it later became clear that Chavan and Wadettiwar came late and were unable to enter the House at the time of the vote.
The NCP legislators absent from the House were – Dattatray Bharane, Anna Bansode, Babandada Shinde and Sangram Jagtap.
Two other NCP legislators – Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik could not vote as they are lodged in jail in PMLA case.
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Two BJP MLAs – Mukta Tilak and Laxman Jagtap – are seriously ill and did not come to the House.
AIMIM legislator Mufti Mohammad Ismail also did not attend the special session.
The Congress, however, rubbished reports of some MLAs breaking away.
“All MLAs are intact…there is nothing like that,” said Chavan.
In the House, three members – two from SP and one from AIMIM remained neutral.
The Eknath Shinde-led faction of Shiv Sena and BJP got 164 votes while the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising Congress, Sharad Pawar-led NCP and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena got 99 votes.
One Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar switched allegiance to the Shinde faction at the last minute.
