Shiv Sena wins house trust; adds one more to group

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde group) and BJP on Monday won the trust vote comfortably with 164 votes in favour and 99 votes against it. While this was expected as the Sena-BJP had managed to secure 164 votes on Sunday during the election of the Speaker, the reduced numbers in the opposition is a sign of impending trouble for Congress.

On Sunday, Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate Rajan Salvi got 107 votes in the Speaker's election. But, by Monday, during the trust vote, the number fell to 99. The reduced numbers were, to a large extent, due to Congress leaders not being present in the assembly.

From stalwarts like Ashok Chavan to newbies like Zeeshan Siddiqui, many were not present for voting. The children of senior Congress leaders like Praniti Shinde, daughter of former Congress Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde, were not present for the Speaker's voting on Sunday and for the trust vote on Monday.


Dhiraj Deshmukh, son of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, was also not present. Former minister Vijay Wadettiwar and others like Kunal Patil, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Shirish Chaudhari, Madhavrao Javalgaonkar and Jitesh Antapurkar were also absent. In all, 11 Congress MLAs did not vote during the trust vote. Congress leaders in Maharashtra gave different reasons for the MLAs not being able to vote from 'being stuck in traffic' to being abroad.

"Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar and a few others were 'stuck in traffic' and reached the assembly late. As per assembly rules, the doors of the assembly were shut when the trust vote was held, so they had to sit in the lobby," explained a Congress leader.

Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) group got another boost when another Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar from the Uddhav camp joined the Shinde camp. The Shinde camp has now 40 Shiv Sena MLAs.

Meanwhile, the Eknath Shinde camp has given a petition to the assembly Speaker seeking suspension of 14 Shiv Sena MLAs belonging to Uddhav Thackeray's camp for violation of the party's whip. Shinde group's chief whip Bharat Gogawale said that they have not given Aaditya Thackeray's name to the Speaker.