Maharashtra, Aug 9: The much-awaited expansion of the Maharashtra Cabinet of the BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Eknath Shinde took place on Tuesday in Mumbai with 18 legislators taking oath as ministers.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office to 18 legislators as ministers. The allocation of portfolios is yet to be announced.
The new Cabinet, which is formed 40 days after Mr. Shinde and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis were sworn in as Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively, has nine ministers each from the BJP and the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena.
From the BJP, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, Vijaykumar Gavit, Mangal Prabhat Lodh, Atul Save, Ravindra Chavan, and Suresh Khade were sworn in as ministers at the ceremony held at the Raj Bhavan.
Shiv Sena’s Shinde faction inducted Deepak Kesarkar, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Tanaji Sawant, Uday Samant, Abdul Sattar, Shambhuraj Desai, Sanjay Rathod, and Sandipan Bhumre into the Cabinet.
The State administration, earlier on Monday, issued a notice announcing that the long-delayed monsoon session of the State legislature would begin on Wednesday and continue till August 18.
Ever since Mr. Shinde and Mr. Fadnavis took power on June 30 after the former led a rebellion to topple the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of former CM Uddhav Thackeray, the expansion of the State Cabinet had been pending, drawing criticism from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena and other Opposition parties, including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The Opposition has been censuring Mr. Shinde and Mr. Fadnavis for running a ‘two-man jumbo Cabinet’ of their own. (Agencies)
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