Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde broke down during his first speech as the CM after the smooth trust vote win. He choked up while remembering the tragic death of his two children in a boating accident.
Shinde's children Dipesh and Shubhada, who were 11 and 7, had drowned in the family's ancestral village. Shinde's older son Shrikanth is a Sena MP now.
The CM was speaking in the Maharashtra assembly, and said, "While I was working as a Shiv Sena Corporator in Thane, I lost 2 of my children & thought everything is over...I was broken but Anand Dighe Sahab convinced me to continue in politics."
He went on to share that Anang Dighe, an iconic Sena leader, had helped him recover from the tragic loss.
"I could not spend time with my family. When my children died, I used to think, what is there to live for? I will stay with my family."
"Dighe had consoled me, and he had made me the leader of Shiv Sena in assembly," the CM added.
CM speaks of 'suppression'
In his maiden speech in the Assembly after winning the trust vote, an emotional Shinde, without naming the Shiv Sena, said he had been "suppressed" for a long time and spoke about how he almost became Chief Minister of the erstwhile Sena-NCP-Congress alliance government.
He said the rebellion led by him last month was a fallout of the "unfair treatment" meted out to him, an apparent reference to his decades-old association with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
Speaking after winning the trust vote, Shinde said "The happenings of today (events leading to the trust vote) didn't happen in just one day."
“When I came for election here, there are people in this House who witnessed how I was treated. I have been suppressed for a long time. Sunil Prabhu (Shiv Sena MLA from the Uddhav Thackeray faction) is also a witness," he said without elaborating.
Quoting former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, Shinde said the senior NCP leader had told him that an "accident" has occurred in the Shiv Sena after the formation of the tripartite MVA government in November 2019.
Without taking names, Shinde referred to Thackeray's statement that NCP chief Sharad Pawar had informed him ahead of the formation of the MVA that leaders of the Congress and the NCP were not keen to work under Shinde.
“But after the formation of the MVA government, Ajit Pawar told me that an accident took place in your own party (Shiv Sena). We were never against you becoming the chief minister," Shinde said. Shinde also claimed that he was earlier promised the post of deputy chief minister when the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance was in power (2014-19).
Easy win in floor test
In the 288-member Assembly (effective strength 287), 164 MLAs voted for the motion of confidence moved by the Shinde-led government, way above the simple majority mark of 144, while 99 voted against it on the last day of the two-day special session of the House. As many as 263 MLAs cast their vote.
Three MLAs abstained, while 20 legislators, most of them from Congress and the NCP, including Congress's Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar, both former ministers, were absent during the trust vote. Speaker Rahul Narvekar, who presided over the proceedings, did not cast his vote.
Narvekar announced that the trust vote was carried by a majority vote.
Following is the party position in the Assembly: Shiv Sena 55, NCP 53, Congress 44, BJP 106, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi 3, Samajwadi Party 2, AIMIM 2, Prahar Janshakti Party 2, MNS 1, CPI (M) 1, PWP 1, Swambhimani Paksha 1, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha 1, Jansurajya Shakti Party 1, Krantikari Shetkari Party 1, and Independents 13.
(PTI inputs)
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