Maha CM expands 2-member Cabinet, 18 ministers sworn in
MUMBAI: The Eknath Shinde government added 18 ministers to the state Cabinet on Tuesday. The oath-taking ceremony took place at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai in the presence of Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
BJP state president Chandrakant Patil, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, and Uday Samant are among those inducted into the state Cabinet.
The strength of Maharashtra ministry has now gone up to 20, less than half the maximum allowed strength of 43.
Ahead of the expansion, CM Shinde met Shiv Sena legislators at the Sahyadri guest house in south Mumbai to pacify those who will not be sworn in on Tuesday. Highly placed sources said: “Chief Minister Eknath Shinde held meetings with MLAs well past midnight. A lot of effort was undertaken to pacify the angry members who insisted on a Cabinet berth in the first expansion.” A second round of expansion will take place in September, Shinde indicated after the oath-taking ceremony.
However, the new list doesn’t include women, a move being panned by politicians and women’s rights activists.
The BJP has 12 women legislators in the state, including one from the Legislative Council. The Shinde group has two women legislators and also the backing of an Independent woman MLA. There are 28 women legislators in Maharashtra, including three from the Legislative Council.
Maharashtra was the first state in the country to give reservation for women. When 50 per cent of India’s population is of women, they are not represented in the state Cabinet, NCP MP Supriya Sule said. This shows the BJP’s mindset, she added.
On June 30, Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy CM.
The new BJP ministers are Radhakrishna Vikhe
Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.
From the Shinde group, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant,
Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai were sworn in as ministers. No minister of state was sworn in on Tuesday.
While BJP has inducted Lodha, who hails from Mumbai, the Shinde group hasn’t included any legislator from the financial capital, where municipal corporation elections are slated later this year.
The new ministers include Shinde group MLA Sanjay Rathod, who was the forest minister when Uddhav Thackeray was the Chief Minister, and was forced to resign after BJP leaders blamed him for a woman’s suicide.