Maharashtra floor test: Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut claims support of 170 MLAs

Ahead of Saturday’s floor test for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance in the Maharashtra Assembly, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut claimed that the alliance has the support of 170 plus MLAs.

“Majority day. 170+++++. Ther is no one yet who can defeat us,” he tweeted in Hindi early morning.

The Shiv Sena has 56 members in the 288-member House. The Nationalist Congress Part (NCP) has 54 members while the Congress has 44 lawmakers. The alliance’s strength at 154 is comfortably above the minimum requirement of 145 or a simple majority.

Raut did not say who were the other members supporting the coalition.The Sena’s former ally BJP is teh largst party in the House with 105 members.

The floor test will be held in the afternoon at the special session two-day sitting of the legislative assembly. Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari had asked Thackeray to prove majority by December 3.

Rajya Sabha MP Raut, who has been a key player in the installation of the Shiv Sena-led government in Maharsashtra, caused a flutter in Goa on Friday claiming that the Sena will now focus in Goa and other states.

NCP MLA Dilip Walse Patil who was appointed pro tem speaker of the Assembly on Friday will oversee the floor test. He replaces BJP MLA Kalidas Kolambkar who was earlier this week appointed to the post. Patil is a former speaker of the Assembly.

Thackeray, who is also the Shiv Sena president, was sworn-in as the chief minister on Thursday evening. Six other ministers - two each from the Sena, the Congress and the NCP - also took oath.

On Friday, one of the first decisions Thackerya took was to stay the construction of the Mumbai metro rail carshed in the city’s green lung Aarey Colony, where strong protests had erupted last month against cutting of trees for the work.