Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan will carry out a reshuffle of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Ministers in his Cabinet on Tuesday, in an effort to changes suggested by NCP chief Sharad Pawar after the latter secured the resignations from his party’s State Ministers on Friday last.
Following a formal communication received from the Chief Minister’s office on Monday evening, on an impending Cabinet reshuffle, Governor K Sankaranarayanan scheduled a swearing-in ceremony at 11.30 am on Tuesday. At the ceremony, new NCP Ministers will be administered oath of office and secrecy at the ceremony.
Tuesday’s Cabinet reshuffle, according to Democratic Front sources, will be confined to the NCP Ministers. Despite, the NCP chief having forced his hand to go in for a Cabinet reshuffle, Chavan is unlikely to make changes in the team of Congress Ministers.
Under a 23:20 Ministry sharing formula that exists in the DF Government in the State, the NCP has 20 Ministers, including DCM Ajit Pawar, while the ruling Congress has 20 Ministers — including the Chief Minister himself, in Chavan’s current 39-member State Cabinet. In effect, the Congress has still three ministerial vacancies.
Though all the 20 NCP Ministers had handed their resignations to their party chief on Friday to facilitate a reshuffle, it is quite likely that Pawar will make half-a-dozen changes in his team of party Ministers in the Chavan Cabinet.
While it looks pretty certain that the NCP Minister facing corruption charges like — Gulabrao Deokar and Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar will be dropped, it remains to be seen if other senior tainted Ministers like Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare will also be axed. There was no official word as on Monday night, as to who was the other NCP Ministers would be dropped and who would be brought in as new Ministers in the State Cabinet.
Among others, State NCP chief Madhukar Pichhad — who is being replaced in his post — will be accommodated in the State Cabinet, in Tuesday’s reshuffle.
If the NCP chief has secured the resignations of all his 20 Ministers and gone in a major reshuffle of his party Ministers, he wants to send a message across to the rank and file in the party — as also those in other political parties in the State — that it is he and not his nephew Ajitdada, who calls shots in the party.
The other main reasons are: To improve the vastly-eroded image of his party in the wake of the expose of the irrigation scam and involvement of some of the party Ministers in other scams and to hand-pick and field some of the senior State Ministers as candidates in the forthcoming lok Sabha polls in the State. According to the NCP sources, senior NCP Ministers like Bhujbal and Jayant Patil have already agreed to contest the forthcoming lok Sabha polls.