Devendra Fadnavis Returns: Five-Year Wait For CM Post Ends With A Grand Swearing-In

Maharashtra's political arena saw a new chapter begin on November 5 with Devendra Fadnavis taking oath as Chief Minister.

After much speculation and deliberations, Maharashtra finally got a new Chief Minister on Thursday, November 5, when Devendra Fadnavis took oath for the top government post. The Maharashtra political drama went on till the very hour of the swearing-in as speculation rose about Eknath Shinde not being happy with the Deputy CM's post.

The "silence period" of the 11 days till the Maharashtra CM's swearing-in was nothing short of a roller-coaster ride marked by fervent parleys among Mahayuti leaders, cancellation of key meetings by Eknath Shinde, the caretaker CM retreating to his home town, and even a trip to the hospital due to his "ill health". Once the Mahayuti "deal" was seemingly sealed, Devendra Fadnavis, Eknath Shinde, and Ajit Pawar confirmed that they would take oath for the Maharashtra government and the ministries would be decided later.

Although Eknath Shinde said that he would take the oath, it wasn't confirmed whether he was given his choice portfolios of Home and Revenue. Uncertainty lingered on till the last moment, Shiv Sena leader Gulabrao Patil said: "We have taken the Deputy CM post, but we want major portfolios like Home and Revenue. Ajit Pawar's entry in the middle caused us a setback; otherwise, we would have won more seats and secured better portfolios."

Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena leaders said that they would not accept any portfolio if Eknath Shinde refused to take oath as the Deputy CM of Maharashtra. Top Shiv Sena leaders then met Eknath Shinde a few hours before the scheduled oath-taking to "convince" him to take the Deputy CM's post.

Devendra Fadnavis's Grand Return

Devendra Fadnavis ended a five-day stint as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on November 28, 2019. On December 1, he warned the Maha Vikas Aghadi that they should not write him off and that he would return soon. For the past five years, he worked to build BJP's presence in Maharashtra ground up and brought in new allies from the Shiv Sena and NCP.

Eventually, the BJP secured its best-ever poll tally under Devendra Fadnavis's leadership as it bagged 132 seats on its own.

Maharashtra CM's Star-Studded Guest List 

The oath-taking ceremony of the trio was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Union ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nitin Gadkari, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ramdas Athawale, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Chirag Paswan.

Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states, including Yogi Adityanath, Mohan Majhi, and Pushkar Singh Dhami also attended the event.  

The star-studded guest list included the Ambani family, Bollywood Superstars Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. Apart from them, the guest list featured Vikrant Massey, Jay Kotak, Ekta Kapoor, Janhvi Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Siddharth Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Madhuri Dixit, Shriram Nene, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Geetanjali Kirloskar, Birendra Saraf, Rajesh Adani, Manoj Sainik, KK Tated, Mridula Bhatkar, Nikhil Meswani, Hetal Meswani, Neerja Chowdhary, Yogesh Pudhari, Rohit Shetty, Arjun Kapoor, Satish Mehta, Atlee, Boney Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Badshah, Jayesh Shah, John Ibrahim, Vicky Kaushal, Khushi Kapoor, Rupali Ganguly, Sudhakar Shetty, Dhaval Mehta, Alok Sanghvi, Jyoti Parekh, Alok Kumar, and Arvind Kumar.