Late Tuesday night, the BJP petitioned Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to ask the Uddhav Thackeray  government to prove its majority. “The 39 Shiv Sena MLAs don’t want to be with the Congress and NCP. Hence it appears that the government is in a minority,” said Opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis. As the BJP delegation met Koshyari, a letter, purportedly from the governor to the legislature to conduct a special session on June 30, became viral on social media, but Raj Bhavan has said it was a fake.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who held a Cabinet meeting, looks to have used another trick up his sleeves to woo the rebel Shiv Sena MLAs. While he made a fresh appeal, asking the rebels to return home and talk to him, Transport Minister Anil Parab, in a gesture to press for the party’s Hindutva agenda, proposed to rename Aurangabad. In his appeal to the rebel MLAs, Thackeray said no other party can give them the honour the Sena has given them.