BJP's Narwekar Takes Charge as Maha Speaker after Winning Poll With 164 Votes; SP, AIMIM Skip Voting

As anticipated, the new ruling alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party’s MLA, Advocate Rahul Narwekar was elected the new Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, here on Sunday.

Narwekar secured 164 votes and defeated his sole rival — the Maha Vikas Aghadi-backed Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi — who secured 107 votes, in the 288-member House. Three members abstained from voting, including AIMIM’s Shah Farukh Anwar and SP’s two MLAs, while one AIMIM MLA was absent.

Shortly after the vote-count, Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal announced Narwekar as the new Speaker amid cheers from the treasury benches.

Thereafter, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, Congress President Nana Patole, Nationalist Congress Party’s Ajit Pawar and other senior leaders of various political parties, escorted Narwekar to the prestigious Speaker’s chair.

Later, in their speeches, Shinde, Fadnavis, Pawar congratulated and welcomed the new Speaker, and expressed hope that he would continue to take forward the glorious legislative traditions and ensure smooth functioning of the House.

“Now a BJP-Shiv Sena govt has taken charge, based on the beliefs of Balasaheb Thackeray. Till date, we had seen that people change sides from Opposition to Government but this time leaders of government went to Opposition,” Shinde said in his speech.

“I myself was a minister, several other ministers too left the Government. This was a huge thing for a common worker like me who was devoted to the ideology of Balasaheb Thackeray and Anand Dighe,” he said.

The elections were held by a division of votes on the first of the two-day Special Assembly Session ordered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, last weekend.

On Monday, Chief Minister Eknath S. Shinde, supported by the BJP, will seek a ‘vote of confidence’ in the new government sworn-in on June 30 after the collapse of the MVA government.

‘Youngest Ever Assembly Speaker’

Narwekar (45) is also the youngest ever Assembly Speaker in the country, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

The legislator from Mumbai’s Colaba Assembly constituency has been associated with the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party in the past. Narwekar, whose brother Makarand is a corporator from Colaba, was a spokesperson of the youth wing of Shiv Sena in early years. He quit that party and joined NCP in 2014.

He had then claimed that inaccessibility of party top brass (read Uddhav Thackeray) prompted him to quit the Sena.

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