Devendra Fadnavis for CM of Maharashtra : A senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said on Sunday night that Devendra Fadnavis' name has been finalized as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra. On the condition of anonymity, he told PTI-Bhasha that the BJP Legislature Party meeting will be held on December 2 or 3.

The swearing-in ceremony will be held at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.

The BJP's Maharashtra unit has said that the swearing-in ceremony of the new Mahayuti government will be held on December 5 evening at Azad Maidan in South Mumbai and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend it. Fadnavis has been the Chief Minister twice. His second term as Chief Minister was of a few days. Fadnavis was the Deputy Chief Minister in the outgoing government led by Eknath Shinde.

How has been the political journey of Devendra Fadnavis?

From being acouncilorr to the youngest mayor of Nagpur and then becoming the first BJP chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis' political journey has been steady and with the party's impressive performance in the assembly elections, it looks like he will be in the top post for the third time in the state. In a state dominated by Maratha politics and leaders, Fadnavis, a 54-year-old leader with a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background, is the second Brahmin to become the chief minister of the state after Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena, an old ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Before the 2014 assembly elections, the soft-spoken leader was the clear choice for the coveted post, mainly because of the faith both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP leader Amit Shah had in him. "Devendra is Nagpur's gift to the country," Modi had said about him in an election rally. Though Modi had campaigned vigorously in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly elections, some credit for the party's unprecedented victory in the elections also went to Fadnavis, the then-state BJP president.

When did Devendra Fadnavis reach the Assembly for the first time?

Fadnavis contested and won his first assembly election in 1999. He never looked back after that and won three consecutive assembly elections. He represents the Nagpur South West seat in the outgoing state assembly. Unlike many leaders of Maharashtra, Fadnavis has been untainted by corruption charges. One of the most outspoken leaders of Maharashtra, Fadnavis is also credited with cornering the state's erstwhile Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government over the alleged irrigation scam. Fadnavis suffered a setback after the 2019 assembly election when the then-joint Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray quit the pre-poll alliance over the chief minister's post, making the BJP leader's much-hyped "Mi Cunha yein (I will come again) slogan fail to live up to expectations.