Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister for a third time on Thursday evening in a grand ceremony at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief Ministers of several NDA-ruled states, among others.
NCP chief Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena president and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde took oath as his deputies. They were administered the oath of office by Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan.
The formation of the new government comes after two weeks of intense negotiations among the Mahayuti allies – BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP – following the November 20 assembly polls and results on November 23. The Mahayuti coalition has won 230 seats in the 288-member House.
Chief ministers of several NDA-ruled states, including Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand), Nayab Singh Saini (Haryana), Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat) and Pramod Sawant (Goa) attended the ceremony.
BJP president J P Nadda, Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Ramdas Athawale, were also present at the event.
Industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Kumarmangalam Birla and Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit-Nene, Sanjay Dutt and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar were also among the attendees.
Fadnavis, along with Shinde and Pawar, met Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan on Wednesday to formally stake their claim to form the government, submitting letters of support from the coalition parties. The governor subsequently invited Fadnavis to lead the new government.
In an earlier BJP legislature party meeting, Fadnavis expressed gratitude to his fellow lawmakers for their continued trust in him, adding that the thumping victory of the ruling Mahayuti alliance was due to the mantra of “Ek hai toh safe hai” given by PM Modi.