Devendra Fadnavis starts vacating chief minister's official residence in south Mumbai, begins hunts for new home

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday started vacating the official chief minister’s residence in south Mumbai. A vehicle of a professional packers and movers company arrived at ‘Varsha’, the official bungalow in the upscale Malabar Hill area, in the afternoon to shift his belongings, a police official posted there said. Fadnavis had resigned from the CM’s post on Tuesday afternoon.

According to sources, Fadnavis, who hails from Nagpur, has started hunting for a new house in Mumbai as he and his family will continue to reside in the metropolis. Fadnavis’s wife Amrita works at a senior position in Axis Bank and their daughter also studies here. They had  shifted to Mumbai after Fadnavis became chief minister in October 2014. As the leader of the BJP’s legislature party, Fadnavis, elected from the Nagpur South West seat, is likely to become the Leader of Opposition in the new Assembly.

Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday evening took oath as the new chief minister of Maharashtra. Thackeray’s family residence ‘Matoshree’ is located in suburban Bandra.  The swearing-in ceremony follows days of dramatic political developments, in which the BJP had formed government on 23 November morning after Ajit Pawar broke ranks with the NCP and aligned with the BJP.

Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar took oath as CM and deputy CM, respectively. However, the four-day-old government collapsed on Tuesday after Ajit Pawar resigned citing “personal reasons” and Fadnavis followed suit.