Governor gets cabinet reminder as Uddhav on verge of losing CM seat

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is headed towards a constitutional crisis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic as Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari is yet to nominate him to the state’s house of legislature.

As per the Constitution, after taking oath as the chief minister, the person must be elected to either the Legislative Assembly or the Council within six months of being elected in order to hold their post.

However, Thackeray, who took over the chief ministership on November 28 last year, has only a month left to be elected to the state’s Legislative Council to remain in office.

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According to a report in NDTV, for the second time on Monday (April 27), the Maharashtra cabinet sent a reminder to Governor Koshiyari, urging him to nominate Thackeray to the Upper House of the Assembly. The first letter was sent on April 11.

The cabinet meeting, presided over by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, passed the resolution with the three Maha Vikas Aghadi allies — the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party, and the Congress – requesting the governor to take immediate steps, the report said.

Meanwhile, with the coronavirus outbreak putting India under the world’s biggest lockdown with over 1.3 billion people confined to their homes, the chances of an election are ruled out, indicating the governor’s nomination is the only option left with Thackeray to continue his portfolio.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Sunday blamed the Bharatiya Janta Party for the delay in Thackeray’s nomination.

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He said that the opposition party must be “frustrated”, but “the Centre’s act of not allowing governments of other political parties to remain in power in other states is a mob-rule mentality working within the framework of the Constitution. The BJP has been fighting against such mob-rule mentality for years.”

Concurring the same, Raut, in his weekly column Rokhtok published in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana, said, “When I had recalled the shameless act of then governor of Andhra Pradesh Ram Lal (in early 1980s), BJP leaders Narayan Rane and Ashish Shelar linked it with governor Koshyari and in a way insulted their own leader.”

A governor can nominate two members to the assembly and even as the party looks at other legal options, even a day’s delay in Thackeray’s nomination could force him to lose his seat.