New Delhi, A day ahead of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s swearing-in as the Maharashtra Chief Minister, his son and first-time MLA Aaditya Thackeray reached the residence of Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi here to invite her for the event.
A senior Shiv Sena leader told IANS: “Aaditya left from Mumbai for Delhi in the evening to personally invite Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the swearing-in ceremony.”
The party leader said that after arriving in the national capital, he directly reached the residence of the Congress interim chief at 10 Janpath around 9.30 p.m. to invite her and former party President Rahul Gandhi for the ceremony being organised at Shivaji Park in Mumbai on Thursday evening.
The junior Thackeray then went to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence to invite him.
In a show of strength, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising the Congress, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has invited the Gandhis, all Congress Chief Ministers, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerji, Aam Aadmi Party national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and DMK chief M.K. Stalin for the swearing-in ceremony.
MVA leader Uddhav Thackeray will be the first from the Thackeray family to become Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
The Shiv Sena has forged an alliance with the Congress and the NCP in the state after breaking away from its 30-year-old alliance partner BJP in the state. The path for Uddhav Thackeray was cleared after BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis resigned as the Chief Minister on Tuesday, four days after he took oath as Chief Minister along with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar as his deputy.
According to the power-sharing agreement between the three parties, the Sena and the NCP will have 15 ministers each and the Congress 12 in the ministry apart from the Speaker’s post.
In the October 21 assembly elections, the BJP had won 105 seats in the 288-member house, while the Shiv Sena bagged 56 seats. The Congress and the NCP had won 44 and 54 seats, respectively.
