CM and eight others take oath as MLCs

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and eight others, on Monday, took an oath as Members of the Legislative Council at a function held at Vidhan Bhavan.

Legislative Council Chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar administered the oath to the nine new members, who were declared elected unopposed last week.

Apart from Thackeray, the others who took oath included Legislative Council Deputy Chairperson and Shiv Sena deputy leader Neelam Gorhe, Nationalist Congress Party leaders Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari, and Congress leader Rajesh Rathod.

From the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the new MLCs are Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, Ramesh Karad, Pravin Datke, and Gopichand

Padalkar.

Thackeray has now become the only second member of the state's numero uno political family to enter the legislature after his son Aditya Thackeray, who was elected an MLA from Worli in October 2019 and is now a cabinet minister.

Thackeray, who was sworn in as the chief minister on November 28 last year, had to become a member of the house before May 27. The state government twice recommended to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari that Thackeray be nominated to the upper house. However, he did not clear it, but subsequently urged the Election Commission to hold the election to the nine seats, which was announced for May 21. Thackeray and eight others were elected unopposed after Congress withdrew its second nominee while BJP replaced Ajit Gopchade with Ramesh Karad.