Forty days after swearing-in of chief minister and deputy chief minister, the state of Maharashtra finally got a cabinet today as 18 cabinet ministers- nine each from BJP and chief minister Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena- took ministerial today.
Despite claims that their cabinet will have a clean image, Shinde and Fadnavis have included Abdul Sattar, Sanjay Rathod (both from Shinde camp) and Vijaykumar Gavit (from BJP) in the cabinet. While Sattar and Rathod were both ministers in previous MVA government, Rathod was sacked following mysterious death of Pooja Chavan, a girl from Pune, who allegedly was close to Rathod. BJP vice-president Chitra Wagh who exposed Pooja Chavan death case has expressed her displeasure at Rathod’s inclusion in the cabinet and has vowed to continue her fight in the court.
Abdul Sattar’s both daughters, it has come to light, have qualified in the TET exam despite failing the actual test. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena has alleged that this happened as Sattar had used his ministerial position when he was minister in MVA government. Vijay Gavit, on the other hand, was minister between 2004-09 and had faced allegations of corruption in tribal welfare department. He was with NCP then and BJP had exposed corruption in his department. He has been with BJP since 2014 and his daughter Dr Heena Gavit is BJP MP. She was accompanying President Draupadi Murmu during her election campaign.
A surprising aspect of today’s cabinet expansion is the fact that no independent MLAs- neither from BJP camp, nor from Shinde camp- have found a place in the ministry. Bachchu Kadu, who was a minister in MVA government, also was not included today. He has been asked to wait till further expansion of the cabinet a few months later. Maharashtra cabinet can have 42 minsters, and after today’s expansion the total number of ministers, including CM and DCM is 20. So there are still 22 vacant ministerial berths which will be filled after a couple of months.
Today’s expansion did not include any woman MLA either. NCP leader and MP Supriya Sule has criticized this decision and said that this shows how serious the new government is about women empowerment.
Almost all the MVA ministers who joined Shinde group have returned to the cabinet. They are Gulabarao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Shambhuraj Desai, Sandipan Bhumre, Abdul Sattar, Uday Samant. The new additions from Shinde group include Deepak Kesarkar and Tanaji Sawant.
Surprisingly, none of the Shinde supporting Shiv Sena MLAs from Mumbai have been included in the cabinet. The name of Sada Sarvarnkar, who represents Mahim constituency (Shiv Sena bhavan, the HQ of Shiv Sena, is in Mahim constituency) was doing rounds till today morning but he seems to have missed the bus as of now.
Shinde faction will have to include a Mumbai MLA in the state cabinet to strengthen its hold over Shiv Sena units in Mumbai which so far, by and large, have remained loyal to Uddhav. The units in the constituencies of five Sena MLAs who have joined Shinde camp have extended their support to Shinde camp.
Those who took oath from the BJP include- Radhakrishan Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.
While Vikhe Patil and Chandrakant Patil are Marathas, Suresh Khade belongs to SC community and Gavit is from ST community. Mangalprabhat Lodha, president of Mumbai BJP, has been included in the cabinet with an eye on Mumbai municipal elections.
