Over a month after Eknath Shinde took oath as the chief minister following a rebellion in the Shiv Sena and the subsequent fall of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, the long-awaited expansion of the Maharashtra Cabinet took place on Tuesday, 9 August.
Eighteen MLAs, nine each from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sena's Shinde faction, took oath in the presence of Governor B S Koshyari at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai.
The BJP leaders who are included in the Cabinet are:
Chandrakant Patil
Sudhir Mungantiwar
Girish Mahajan
Suresh Khade
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil
Ravindra Chavhan
Mangal Prabhar Lodha
Vijaykumar Gavit
Atul Save
From the Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction, the following MLAs have been inducted:
Dada Bhuse
Shambhuraje Desai
Sandeepan Bhumre,
Uday Samant
Tanaji Sawant
Abdul Sattar
Deepak Kesarkar
Gulabrao Patil
Sanjay Rathod
Though there is no clarity on the portfolios yet, reports have suggested that Fadnavis, also the deputy CM, is likely to get the home ministry.
"Cabinet expansion took place today. Starting today, they will work full-fledged and take up the responsibility of their respective deptartments. It's a small cabinet, the rest of the cabinet still remains (to be formed)," Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told news agency ANI.
While the BJP has inducted Lodha, who hails from Mumbai, the Shinde faction hasn't included any legislator from the financial capital, where municipal corporation elections are slated later this year.
Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, several MLAs of the Eknath Shinde camp of the Shiv Sena held a meeting in Mumbai on Tuesday morning.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders had met on Monday evening at the Mumbai residence of Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis to discuss the names of the probables to be inducted into the state ministries.
Of the 55 MLAs of the Shiv Sena, 40 had aligned with Shinde.
Earlier, Shinde and Fadnavis were the only two ministers in the 40-day-old government – a state of affairs that had been criticised by the Opposition.
The two had been sworn-in on 30 June, after Shinde launched a revolt in the Sena and formed an alliance with the BJP, leading to the fall of the Sena-Congress-NCP government under Uddhav Thackeray.
Fadnavis and Shinde had visited Delhi multiple times in the recent past over the issue of Cabinet expansion.
Who Are the Ministers in the New Maharashtra Cabinet?
The Sena's Sanjay Rathod was the Forest Minister in Thackeray's Cabinet.
The BJP's Maharashtra chief Chandrakant Patil is a two-term MLC and a first-term MLA from the state. On the other hand, the BJP's Girish Mahajan has won from his Assembly seat six consecutive times.
Sudhir Mungantiwar is also a six-term BJP MLA from the Chandrapur district and served as the state's finance and forest minister from 2014-19.
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil is a seven-term MLA from Ahmednagar. He is a former Congress leader who switched to the BJP ahead of the 2019 election.
Ravindra Chavan is a three-term BJP MLA from Thane. On the other hand, Vijaykumar Gavit is a five-time MLA who had left the NCP in 2014 to join the BJP.
Atul Save is a second-term BJP MLA from Marathwada, and Mangal Prabhat Lodha a five-time MLA from Mumbai as well as the BJP's Mumbai unit chief. The latter is also the richest MLA in the state, with declared assets worth Rs 441 crore.
Suresh Khade is a second-term BJP MLA from Sangli.
Gulabrao Patil, a Sena lesgislator, is a four-term MLA from Jalgaon. He was also a minister in the Thackeray government, as was Uday Samant, an MLA from Ratnagiri, Sandipan Bhumre from Aurangabad, Dada Bhuse from Nashik, and Shambhuraj Desai from Satara.
Tanaji Sawant is a first-term legislator from Osmanabad.
Abdul Sattar, formerly with the Congress, joined the Sena in 2019 and is a three-term MLA from Marathwada.
The Sena's Deepak Kesarkar is a three-term MLA from Sindhudurg and was a minister of state.
PM Modi Congratulates New Cabinet
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the new Cabinet in the state, calling it a "great blend of administrative experience and passion to deliver good governance."
"Congratulations to all those who took oath as ministers in the Maharashtra government today. This team is a great blend of administrative experience and the passion to deliver good governance. My best wishes to them for serving the people of the state," Modi said on Twitter.
NCP leader Supriya Sule, on the other hand, highlighted the fact that there was not a single female minister in the Cabinet.
"But in the swearing-in ceremony of the Cabinet in the state today, 18 ministers took oath, but women were not represented. Women were expected to get due representation in the Cabinet but not a single woman got a chance. This is very sad," she said.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)
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