Devendra Fadnavis met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Friday and handed over his resignation letter.
Devendra Fadnavis and other state ministers meet Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhawan. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)
Amid the ongoing tussle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena over the government formation in Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis resigned as the chief minister on Friday. Fadnavis met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and handed over his resignation letter, and Koshyari accepted it, PTI reported.
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He thanked the people of Maharashtra for allowing him to serve them for five years. "I also thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the trust reposed in my five-year term as chief minister."
He said the governor asked him to be the caretaker CM till alternate arrangements are made. Attacking the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis said that no decision was taken in his presence on sharing the chief minister's post with Sena for 2.5 years. "There was never a decision on this issue. Even Amit Shah ji and Nitin Gadkari ji said this was never decided," Fadnavis said, while addressing the media.
Devendra Fadnavis said BJP alone would make its chief minister as Sena was not promised top office. "Sena has already decided to go with others.Certain Sena leaders have stooped to very low level to criticise the PM," he added.
He also said he tried contacting Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, but his calls were never answered. "Shiv Sena's policy to shun the BJP and talk with Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was wrong," he said.
"Balasaheb Thackeray is respected by all of us. Infact we even never said anything against Uddhav ji Thackeray, but in past five years and especially last 10 days, the kind of statements which were made against our top leadership including Modi ji were not tolerable," Fadnavis said.
However, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said they have always respected BJP, the Prime Minister and the party leaders. He also said that Shiv Sena is capable of forming government and having a chief minister from their party.
There has been a delay in the formation of a new government in Maharashtra after the assembly polls due to differences between the BJP and Shiv Sena on power-sharing. The BJP won 105 seats while Shiv Sena bagged 56 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
BJP and Shiv Sena have been partners in the ruling alliance in Maharashtra and had fought the assembly polls together. Shiv Sena has insisted that the two parties had a '50-50' power-sharing agreement before the elections.
Fadnavis has said that Shiv Sena was not promised the chief ministerial post for two-and-a-half years when the alliance was sealed before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
(With inputs from agencies)
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