Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday resigned as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, just 79 hours into his new term.
Fadnavis thus became the shortest-serving chief minister of the state. Interestingly, just weeks earlier, he had become the first chief minister after Vasantrao Naik to complete a full five-year term.
Before Fadnavis, who like Naik is from the Vidarbha region, the unwanted record was held by Narayan Rane. As a Chief Minister from the Shiv Sena, Rane held the post for little over eight months in 1999.
The Sena, however, lost the 1999 Assembly election, leading to Rane’s resignation. Some may also consider P.K Sawant as one of the shortest serving CMs, since he held the post for just nine days.
Nevertheless, Sawant was an acting chief minister after Marotrao Kannamwar died in office in November 1963.
Meanwhile, Fadnavis also joined Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Jagdambika Pal as one of the shortest serving CMs in Indian history.
Both Yediyurappa and Pal resigned as the chief minister of their respective states in less than three days.
Meanwhile, Fadnavis launched a scathing attack on the Shiv Sena alleging that the Uddhav Thackeray-led party started making threats after realising its increased bargaining power due to the number game.
While wishing good luck to Thackeray and his new government, Fadnavis also predicted that the Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP alliance would not last for long because of the “core differences” in all three parties.
“The BJP and Shiv Sena contested election as an alliance and we got a clear mandate from the people. The mandate was more in favour of the BJP as we won nearly 70 per cent of the seats that we contested. Shiv Sena managed to win just 40-42 per cent of the seats they contested. But as the results came out and the Sena realised that their bargaining power had increased, they began arm-twisting us over demands that were never agreed upon. Sena leaders stopped talking to us and started talks with the Congress and NCP,” Fadnavis said in a press conference held to announce his resignation.
