Amid firecrackers bursting and loud cheering from the crowd, the Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray after more than a month of the rollercoaster political ride in Maharashtra took oath as Chief Minister on Thursday.

Uddhav Thackeray is the first Thackeray clan to sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He is leading the Maha Vikas Aghadi, a newly form alliance of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress in the state.

The ceremony was organized at Shivaji stadium, the same venue where the founder of Shiv Sena Bal Thackeray addressed his first Dussehra rally to announce the birth of Shiv Sena in 1966.

Uddhav Thackeray is the third Shiv Sena leader to hold the post after Manohar Joshi and Narayan Rane.

In the ceremony, six other legislators took oath as minister namely Eknath Shinde of Shiv Sena; Subhash Desai of Shiv Sena who is also an advisor of Uddhav Thackeray; Jayant Patil of NCP, a modern face of Maratha politics in the state; Chhagan Bhujbal of NCP who is interestingly a former Shiv Sena leader who was there since the inception of the party; Balasaheb Thorat, state President of Congress and Nitin Raut, working president of Congress.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Uddhav Thackeray through a tweet and showed confidence in him to work diligently for the bright future of Maharashtra.

Congratulations to Uddhav Thackeray Ji on taking oath as the CM of Maharashtra. I am confident he will work diligently for the bright future of Maharashtra. @OfficeofUT

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 28, 2019

The two key attendees of the ceremony among others were Uddhav’s estranged brother Raj Thackeray and Sharad Pawar’s nephew who a few days ago, deceiving his party, sworn-in as Deputy Chief Minister with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister.

Devendra Fadnavis was also present at the event.

From the business arena, the leading businessmen Mukesh Ambani along with his wife Nita Ambani also attended the ceremony.

Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were not there to attend the ceremony but they sent a congratulatory message to Uddhav Thackeray in separate letters.

Apart from thousands of Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress workers and leaders, some prominent leaders who were present at the ceremony were Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Congress leader Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal,  KTS Tulsi, MK Stalin, SK Shinde, Sanjay Raut, and Prithviraj Chavan.