In the first-ever expansion of his two-member Ministry 41 days after he assumed his office, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday inducted 18 new Ministers — nine each from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the BJP — into his Cabinet.
Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office and secrecy to 18 new Ministers — all Cabinet rank — at a swearing-in ceremony held at Darbar Hall of Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai on Tuesday.
The nine Shinde-led Shiv Sena Ministers who took oath of office and secrecy are Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai.
The nine BJP Ministers who assumed office are: Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.
Apart from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, prominent others present at the swearing-in ceremony were: Union Ministers of State Ramdas Athawale, Raosaheb Danve, Dr Bhagwat Karad and Kapil Patil, Leader of the Opposition Ajit Pawar and others.
Surprisingly, no woman has found a berth in the State Cabinet — a feature that has not gone well with the elected women representatives in both the ruling dispensation.
Slamming the BJP for not giving representation to the woman in the State Cabinet, NCP MP Supriya Sule said: “Maharashtra was the first State to make reservations for women. Despite the fact that women account for 50 per cent of the population in the State, women have not been given representation in the State Cabinet. This shows the BJP’s mindset towards women”.
Another development that rubbed the women leaders in the ruling BJP the wrong way is the induction of Sena’s Sanjay Rathod, who was embroiled in a controversy with a 22-year-old Tik Tok star committed suicide in Pune in February last year.
State BJP woman leader and party’s State vice president Chitra Wagh made no bones about her displeasure over Rathod’s induction into the Shinde Cabinet. “It is very unfortunate that former Minister Sanjay Rathod, who caused the woman’s death, has been made a Minister once again. I will continue my fight against Rathod even though he has become a Minister again,” she said.
Meanwhile, Shinde has convened his first full-fledged State Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Ahead of the Cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister is expected to allocate portfolios to all the Ministers in his Cabinet.
The Monsoon Session of the Maharashtra Legislature - --which was to begin from August 10 - will now get underway from August 17. Available indications suggested that the Monsoon Session will be a brief one and it will last for just seven days.