'Mi Devendra Sarita Gangadharrao Fadnavis...': Deva bhau takes oath as Maharashtra CM for 3rd time

Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday took oath as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for the third time. Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde and NCP leader Ajit Pawar took the oath as Deputy Chief Ministers along with Fadnavis. Fadnavis was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan. 

The ceremony, held at Mumbai's Azad Maidan, was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. BJP national president JP Nadda and former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani were also present at the mega event. 

NDA's show of power

Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Chirag Paswan also graced the occasion. Maharashtra BJP leaders Narayan Rane and Pankaja Munde were also present at the mega event. 

Around 19 CMs and Deputy CMs of NDA-ruled states including Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan (Andhra Pradesh), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Bhupinder Patel (Gujarat), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Dr Mohan Yadav (Madhya Pradesh) and Bhajanlal Sharma (Rajasthan) were also present at the ceremony.

Who's who of entertainment world, industry present

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, Aditya Birla Group boss Kumar Mangalam Birla along with his daughter Ananya, and Master Blaster of Indian cricket Sachin Tendulkar were also present at the ceremony. 

Newlyweds Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant were also spotted at the event. Actors including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Madhuri Dixit as well as filmmaker Rohit Shetty were also present.  

MVA leaders give the event a skip

Meanwhile, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders including Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar gave the ceremony a skip. Aaditya Thackeray, Supriya Sule, and Jayant Patil also decided to give the mega event at Azad Maidan a miss. No Congress leader was present at the event either. 

Massive comeback for Fadnavis on back of thumping majority

This is the third time that Fadnavis has taken oath as the Maharashtra CM. In 2014, he became the CM for the first time at 44 when the BJP was in a coalition with the then undivided Shiv Sena. 

After the 2019 polls, Shiv Sena walked away from the alliance amid tussle over CM post. Following this, Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar took oath as the CM and Deputy CM but the government could last only 80 hours. 

In the Maharashtra elections, the ruling Mahayuti alliance won a whopping 230 of the total 288 assembly seats. The Mahayuti alliance comprises BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP. The BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 132 of the 149 seats it contested. The Shiv Sena and NCP bagged 57 and 41 seats, respectively.