The new Eknath Shinde-led government won the floor test by a 164-99 margin.
Two prominent Maharashtra Congress MLAs -- Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar -- walked into the state assembly after the Eknath Shinde camp had already proved a comfortable majority. The two leaders were late while the youngest Congress MLA Zeeshan Siddique, another Congress MLA Dheeraj Deshmukh, and Nationalist Congress Party's Sangram Jagtap, who were present yesterday for the speaker vote, did not show up today fuelling speculations.
Mr Siddique has, however, said that all Congress MLAs were present outside the assembly but weren't allowed in the house to vote as the doors shut "a couple of minutes" before they reached.
"As you can see in this picture all of us congress MLA's were in the vidhanbhavan together in the lobby but weren't allowed to enter and vote as the gates shut a couple of minutes before we could enter. We even requested Hon. speaker to allow us to vote as MVA voting had not begun," he said in a tweet along with a picture of MLAs sitting on chairs in the lobby.
Ashok Chavan and Vijay Wadettiwar were unable to reach inside the house at the time of the vote.
Others who were absent from the trust vote for various reasons were NCP's Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh, Dattatray Vithoba Bharne, Nilesh Dnyandev Lanke, Anna Bansode, Dilip Dattatray Mohite, Baban Shinde, BJP's Mukta Tilak, Laxman Jagtap, Congress's Praniti Shinde, Ranjit Kamble, and AIMIM's Mufti Ismail Qasmi.
The new Eknath Shinde-led government won the floor test by a 164-99 margin, proving his government's majority and cementing his position as Chief Minister of the state and the leader of the Shiv Sena.
Aaditya Thackeray, son of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, voted against the whip issued by the Shiv Sena chief whip Bharat Gogawale, appointed last night, and may face disqualification proceedings.
This caps two weeks of political surprises that split the Shiv Sena and brought down the Uddhav Thackeray government.