The Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra today won a confidence vote by a comfortable margin of 10 votes in the state assembly. The government had 143 votes in its favour while the combined Opposition was able to muster only 133 votes.
Seven MLAs, five belonging to the NCP, one Janta Dal (secular) MLA and one from the Bahujan Bharip Mahasangh, who had withdrawn from the Democratic Front government were disqualified under the provision of the Anti-Defection Act on Thursday morning by speaker Arun Gujarathi.
The ruling government's gambit of flying out potential rebel MLAs to Indore and Bangalore in order to prevent any poaching by the Opposition combine paid off with all its MLAs, with the support of the JD, CP (M) and independents stood by the government in its hour of crisis.
After winning the vote of confidence, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told mediapersons:
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