CM-designate Uddhav remembers dad, thanks Sonia, Pawar

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister-designate and Shiv Sena President Uddhav B. Thackeray on Tuesday evening remembered his late father Bal Thackeray and thanked Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar for the trust reposed in him.

Thackeray will be sworn-in as Chief Minister on December 1 in the evening at 5 pm, at a mega-function planned in Shivaji Park, it was announced by a spokesperson.

In his acceptance speech after he was unanimously elected as the 'Maha Vikas Aghadi' nominee for Chief Minister, Thackeray said he was overwhelmed by the honour and would strive to live up to the expectations of all the supporting parties and the people of the state.

"This is an alliance of parties with divergent ideologies. This will give a new direction to the whole country. However, it should not be reduced to 'yours' or 'mine', but it should 'our' government. More importantly, the common man of the state should feel is 'my government' always," he said to thunderous applause.

Spicing the speech with his brand of humour, Thackeray also extended an olive branch to former ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and said: "I will soon go to meet 'Mota Bhai' in New Delhi" (referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi).

However, he rued how the BJP dumped its 30-year-old ally and virtually called him a "liar", and they ejected him from the alliance and the NDA.

"We were not hungering for the post of CM... but, you had given a promise and you should have kept it. You had no faith in me, but the Opposition parties reposed their trust in me," Thackeray asserted.

He said the MVA parties did not "bend" before anybody, did not indulge in falsehoods and lying is not his brand of "Hindutva", and now after the struggle of the past few weeks, he would concentrate on the awesome task of administration before him.

Thackeray promised to lead an all-inclusive government which would work for the cause of the farmers, the poor, the downtrodden and marginalised sections of society and sought the cooperation of all the MVA parties in his endeavour.

Other leaders of different parties in the MVA also spoke and congratulated Thackeray on his election as the new CM and assured him of their full support in running the government.

Later, Thackeray, accompanied by other top leaders of the alliance left Raj Bhavan to stake his claim to form the government before Governor B. S. Koshyari.