NEW DELHI: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday morning announced Prithviraj Chavan as the next chief minister of Maharashtra.
"Congress president Sonia Gandhi has chosen Union minister Prithviraj Chavan as the next chief minister of Maharashtra," said Pranab.
Earlier in the morning, Prithviraj Chavan met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her residence in Delhi.
Senior Congress leaders Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony also came to elicit their opinion on choosing a successor to Ashok Chavan.
The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Maharashtra on Tuesday night authorised AICC chief Sonia Gandhi to choose a new leader to succeed Ashok Chavan who resigned as chief minister in the wake of Adarsh housing society scam.
A one-line resolution was passed by the CLP meeting authorizing Gandhi to pick the new chief minister of the state.
Chavan has been a central minister, who has never been in state politics and is more at home with policy and complex issues like the India-US nuclear deal.
Chavan has won three Lok Sabha elections and his base in Karad in the heart of western Maharashtra is a battlefield between Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP with whom it shares an uneasy alliance.
