Uddhav Thackeray to become 8th CM while not being MLA/MLC

Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray will join the group of seven leaders in Maharashtra on November 28, who became the Chief Minister despite not being a member of the Legislative Assembly or the Legislative Council. Congress leaders AR Antulay, Vasantdada Patil, Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil, Shankarrao Chavan, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Prithviraj Chavan are among the leaders who were not members of any House of the State Legislature when they took oath as Chief Ministers.

The name of the then Congress leader and current NCP chief Sharad Pawar is also among these leaders. Thackeray (59) will become the eighth such leader to take oath as Chief Minister at Shivaji Park here on Thursday evening. Antulay, who became the Chief Minister in June 1980, was the first such leader in the state.

Vasantdada Patil became the Chief Minister in February 1983 after resigning as an MP. Nilangekar Patil became the Chief Minister in June 1985 while Shankarrao Chavan, who was the Union Minister at the time, held the top post of the state in March 1986. Pawar was then the defense minister in the Narasimha Rao government but Pawar's name as Chief Minister came to light in March 1993 after Sudhakarrao Naik stepped down from the post after the riots in Mumbai.

Similarly, Prithviraj Chavan was a minister in the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, but he also became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in November 2010, replacing Ashok Chavan. Antulay, Nilangekar Patil and Shinde contested the assembly by-election after becoming Chief Minister and emerged victorious. The other four leaders had fulfilled the constitutional provision by becoming members of the Legislative Council.