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Eknath Shinde expands Cabinet

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 being formed 40 days after 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 also begin on Wednesday and continue till August 18.

BJP State vice president Chitra Wagh protested the induction of Sena leader Sanjay Rathod into the Cabinet. “​It is very unfortunate that former minister Sanjay Rathod, who caused the death of Pooja Chavan, has been given the post of minister again. I will continue my fight against Rathod even though he has become a minister again,” said Wagh.

Rathod had been forced to resign as State Forest Minister in the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in 2021 after he came under mounting pressure from the BJP for his alleged connection with the death of Pooja Chavan, a 23-year-old woman from the nomadic banjara community in Pune.

Responding to criticism, CM Shinde said Rathod had been given a clean chit by the police during the previous government. “Sanjay Rathod had been given a clean chit by the police in the erstwhile MVA government. Hence, he was inducted in the present cabinet. If someone else has anything to say over and above this, we will definitely hear them out,” the Chief Minister said.

Ever since Shinde and Fadnavis took power on June 30 after the former led a rebellion to topple the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress 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 NCP.

The Opposition has been censuring Shinde and Fadnavis for running a ‘two-man jumbo Cabinet’ of their own.

Of the 18 Ministers sworn in at the Raj Bhavan ceremony, only one has become a Minister for the first time. There is no woman in the list.