The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a floor test for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to prove majority support in Maharashtra Assembly. The three-judge bench comprising Justices NV Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna ordered that the floor test be held on Wednesday, November 27 by 5 pm.
Reading out the order, Justice Ramana said that the floor test will be held via an open ballot and will be telecast live. The SC also ordered that the senior-most MLA of the House be nominated as the Protem Speaker, who will swear-in the MLAs before holding the floor test.
The Supreme Court was hearing the plea filed by the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress alliance against the new government that was sworn-in early Saturday morning with Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP as Chief Minister and Ajit Pawar of the NCP as his deputy, creating a political upheaval in the state.
The petition had sought the quashing of Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari's decision inviting BJP's Devendra Fadnavis to form the government on Saturday morning as “unconstitutional, arbitrary, illegal, void-ab-initio, and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.” The plea had also sought the apex court's direction to the Governor to invite the alliance of Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the NCP.
Also read: What happened in Supreme Court on Monday
Even as the hearing was underway on Monday, the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress' proposed 'Maha Vikas Aghadi' on Monday staked its claim to form the government in the state. The delegations submitted support letters of a total 160 MLAs of the three parties to the Governor's office.
Interestingly, the BJP has also claimed the support of over 170 MLAs on their side including its own 105, besides others from the NCP, independents and smaller parties.
In the Maharashtra Assembly Elections held on October 21, BJP had won 105 seats in the 288-member House while the NCP had won 54 seats. The Congress had won 44 seats in the Assembly.
Twelve hours ahead of the Supreme Court verdict, the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress combine organised a public parade of their 162 supporting MLAs in a bid to disprove the claims of 170 legislators made by the BJP and its ally Ajit Pawar. Besides the enthusiastic 162 MLAs of the three 'Maha Vikas Aghadi' partners, top leaders of all three parties like Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule, Praful Patel, Jayant Patil, Nawab Malik, Jitendra Awhad (all Nationalist Congress Party), Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray, Eknath Shinde, and Sanjay Raut (all Shiv Sena), Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan, Balasaheb Thorat and Mallikarjuna Kharge (Congress) and others were present.
