Devendra Fadnavis takes oath as Maharashtra Chief Minister

Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday took oath as Maharashtra chief minister for the second consecutive term while NCP leader and Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar took oath as Deputy Chief Minister.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar on taking oath as Maharashtra chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively.

Amit Shah also sent out a tweet congratulating the two.

It was a surprising turn for the Maharashtra government formation: NCP supremo Sharad Pawar earlier had claimed that there was a consensus on Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister of the alliance government.

The suprise move came at a time when deliberations between Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena seemingly reached the final stage on Friday.

After taking oath as Maharashtra CM again, Devendra Fadnavis was quoted as saying: "People had given us a clear mandate, but Shiv Sena tried to ally with other parties after results, as a result, the President's rule was imposed. Maharashtra needed a stable government, not a 'khichdi' government."

Ajit Pawar was quoted as saying: "From result day, no party was able to form the government...so we decided to form a stable government."