Maharashtra cabinet expanded 40 days after Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis formed the government
Maharashtra cabinet expanded 40 days after Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis formed the government
The much-awaited expansion of the Maharashtra cabinet of the Eknath Shinde-led BJP-Shiv Sena government took place in Mumbai on Tuesday, with 18 MLAs taking oath as ministers.
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office to 18 MLAs. The allocation of departments is yet to be announced.
The Shinde faction of the BJP and Shiv Sena has nine ministers each in the new cabinet, formed 40 days after Mr Shinde and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis were sworn in as chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively.
Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, Vijaykumar Gavit, Mangal Prabhat Lodh, Atul Save, Ravindra Chavan and Suresh Khade took oath as ministers on behalf of the BJP in a ceremony held at the Raj Bhavan.
The Shinde faction of Shiv Sena inducted Deepak Kesarkar, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Tanaji Sawant, Uday Samant, Abdul Sattar, Shambhuraj Desai, Sanjay Rathod and Sandipan Bhumre in the cabinet.
The state administration had earlier on Monday issued a notice announcing that the long-pending monsoon session of the state assembly would also begin from Wednesday and would continue till August 18.
Ever since Mr Shinde and Mr Fadnavis had led a rebellion to topple former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Maha Vikas Aghadi government, pending the expansion of the state cabinet, the Uddhav Thackeray faction has criticized the government since he took power on June 30. of other opposition parties, including the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The opposition has been criticizing Mr. Shinde and Mr. Fadnavis for running their own ‘two-member jumbo cabinet’.