A 50-kilogram cake was cut in Thane to celebrate the birthday of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who turned 59 on Thursday, while the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) added political colour to the occasion by cutting a cake depicting a khokha, street lingo for a crore.
Shinde became CM with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party in June last year after he and 39 Shiv Sena MLAs rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray and brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
Since then, the MVA, comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP and Congress, have routinely alleged Shinde and his band of rebels took crores of money or several khokha to switch sides.
During the day, Shinde also inaugurated the road overbridge (ROB) over the railway tracks in Kopri in the district.Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and several other leaders visited the Thane residence of Shinde to greet him on his birthday, while the CM himself went to Anand Ashram, the office complex from where his mentor Anand Dighe ran the undivided Sena in the region.
Shinde also celebrated his birthday with the specially-abled children of Kisan Nagar, the ward of the Thane Municipal Corporation from where he started his political career in the 1990s. An activist of Shinde's Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena offered 59 free autorickshaw rides to people in the city to mark the occasion.