Mumbai, Nov 26 (PTI) Once being the only second chief minister in Maharashtra to complete the full five-year term, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis now holds the dubious distinction of being the CM with the shortest tenure of four days in the last 59 years, a downhill journey which underlines transient nature of politics.
On Tuesday afternoon, Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis, 49, resigned from his post, only three days after he made a dramatic comeback as the chief minister for a second term with the support of NCP leader Ajit Pawar, who had broken ranks with his parent party to lend support to the BJP.
However, what was supposed to be a dream run for Fadnavis came to an abrupt end in afternoon after Ajit Pawar stepped down as deputy CM, exposing the BJP's claim that it had majority in the 288-member Assembly.
Earlier P K Sawant held the record of being the Maharashtra CM with the shortest term-- from November 25 to December 4, 1963. He was made the caretaker chief minister after the death of his predecessor Marotrao Kannamwar.
Fadnavis' previous term as the chief minister lasted from October 31, 2014 to November 12, 2019, making him only the second CM after Vasantrao Naik of the Congress to last the full five-year term.
The second tenure of Fadnavis lasted from November 23 to November 26, 2019.
The four-day-old BJP-led government collapsed on the eve of the supreme court-ordered floor test in the Assembly, after Ajit Pawar quit as deputy CM citing "personal reasons".
Fadnavis too resigned while admitting that the BJP had lost majority in the House.
The collapse of the nascent government capped the month-long uncertainty in Maharashtra politics, which witnessed many twists and turns since the results of the assembly elections were declared on October 24.
Fadnavis remained CM till November 8, as the tenure of the 13th Legislative Assembly had ended.
He submitted his resignation on November 8 and changed his twitter bio to "caretaker" chief minister of Maharashtra.
Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on November 9 asked Fadnavis, the leader of the BJP's legislative wing, to indicate willingness and ability of his party to form government. The BJP won maximum 105 seats in the assembly polls held last month.
However, as the BJP failed to muster numbers, the governor invited the Shiv Sena, the second largest bloc in the 288-member Assembly with 56 MLAs, to stake claim, and later the NCP.
With no party having the requisite numbers, President's Rule was imposed in the state on November 12, which was lifted on November 23.
On that day, Fadnavis had changed his twitter bio to "Maharashtra's Sevak".
He again changed the twitter bio to "caretaker CM of Maharashtra" on Tuesday, as no CM is in place right now.
On Tuesday evening, the governor convened a special session of the Assembly on November 27, where pro-tem speaker will administer oath to 288 newly-elected members.
The 'Maha Vikas Aghadi' comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress had claimed majority support of 162 MLAs in the House.
Fadnavis had taken the chief minister's oath on Saturday with NCP's Ajit Pawar as his deputy. However, on Tuesday as it became clear that Ajit Pawar has failed to split the NCP and secure enough MLAs to would help BJP touch the majority mark, both of them resigned.
Prior to Fadnavis' first term, Prithviraj Chavan had served as the CM from November 10, 2010 to September 27, 2014.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will take oath as CM on December 1.
