Uddhav Thackeray To Be Sworn In As MLC Today

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will be sworn in as a Member of the state's Legislative Council at 1 PM on Monday. The delay in the Chief Minister's election to the Upper House before the notification of the Election Commission of India (ECI) led to sharp exchanges between leaders of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition and the BJP.

The MVA leaders met Governor BS Koshyari asking him to nominate Uddhav Thackeray to the Council and also accused the BJP of playing politics over the matter. Following the ECI notification, Uddhav Thackeray filed his nomination resulting in his getting elected to the Legislative Council, unopposed.

Eight other newly-elected MLCs will be sworn in to the Upper House in the state today. All nine candidates including Uddhav Thackeray were elected unopposed to the Maharashtra State legislative Council and the results were declared after the nine nominations were filed for nine seats.

Perhaps, the biggest challenge Uddhav Thackeray faces as chief minister is the management of the COVID-19 crisis.

Meanwhile, Mumbai has inched close to 20,000 cases of COVID-19, about a fifth of the country's overall count. The metropolis has reported 19,967 Coronavirus positive cases so far with a death count of 734.

Maharashtra recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases on a single day (2,347) on Sunday. Of these, Mumbai reported 1,571 cases.

The Maharashtra State government has granted permission to several industries in green and orange zones which are comparatively less affected by COVID-19, to start operations over the next few days. This is expected to put a check to the migration of labourers from the state.

Shramik Express Specials

The Western Railway has so far run 500 special trains till May 16 carrying about seven lakh passengers to their home states. Most of these trains were UP bound (349), while 56 trains went to Bihar 39 to Orissa and 26 to MP.