Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis carried out a long-awaited cabinet expansion today, more than three weeks after the assembly election results were declared. A total of 39 ministers took the oath of office during a grand ceremony in Nagpur, Fadnavis’s home constituency.
The state of Maharashtra allows a maximum of 43 ministers, and with this new addition, the cabinet is now almost complete with 42 positions filled. Nineteen ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), eleven from the Shiv Sena, and nine from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were sworn in. Fadnavis, along with his deputies Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, attended the ceremony held at Raj Bhavan in Nagpur.
Among those who took the oath were several prominent leaders from the BJP, including state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Ashish Shelar, Ganesh Naik, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Pankaja Munde, Girish Mahajan, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Chandrakant Patil, and Nitesh Rane. The Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde saw leaders such as Shambhuraj Desai, Dadaji Dagadu Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Uday Samant, Gulabrao Patil, and Sanjay Shirsat taking ministerial positions. NCP leaders Aditi Tatkare, Dhananjay Munde, and Hasan Mushrif were also inducted into the new cabinet.
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This cabinet expansion comes after the initial oath-taking of Fadnavis as Chief Minister and his deputies, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, on December 5 in Mumbai. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other key BJP leaders.
The delay in finalizing the cabinet had been attributed to disputes over portfolio allocation. One of the key points of contention was the home ministry, which the BJP had been unwilling to cede to the Shiv Sena, despite the latter’s expectations. Eknath Shinde, who had hoped to secure the home ministry, ultimately had to settle for the deputy chief minister position, a role he now shares with Ajit Pawar.
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance won a resounding victory in the state’s recent assembly elections, securing 235 seats. The BJP emerged as the single largest party with 132 seats, while the Shiv Sena and NCP claimed 57 and 41 seats, respectively.
