The BJP’s continued dominance in the saffron alliance Government in Maharashtra reflected in the portfolio allocations carried out by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday, as he handed out relatively less significant Cabinet portfolios like Transport, Industries, Environment, Public Works (Public Undertakings) and Public Health & Family Welfare to saffron ally, Shiv Sena.
A day after he expanded his Cabinet by inducting 20 more Ministers, including 10 belonging to the Sena, Fadnavis allocated relatively significant Cabinet portfolios like Water Resources (Irrigation), Energy, Food & Civil Supplies and Water Supply & Sanitation to the BJP’s Ministers.
In the first round of portfolio allocations that he had made after he took over reins of the State on October 31, the Chief Minister had handed out plum portfolios like Revenue, Finance and Co-operation to BJP’s Ministers Eknath Khadse, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Chandrakant Patil respectively. He had kept with himself key portfolios like Home, Urban Development and Water Resources.
Even in the second of the portfolio allocations, Fadnavis has kept portfolios like Home and Urban Development, while handing out Water Resources Ministry to a BJP Minister.
In effect, the Shiv Sena has failed in cornering the key portfolios like Home and Revenue that it had demanded. Nor has its demand for the Deputy Chief Minister’s post has been met by the BJP, which has gone ahead and scrapped the post.
In the portfolio allocations made on Saturday, Fadnavis distributed the Ministries to the Sena’s Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State in the following manner: Eknath Shinde (Public Works – public undertaking which includes Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation) Subhash Desai (Industries), Diwakar Raote (Transport), Ramdas Kadam (Environment, Public Health (Dr Deepak Sawant), all Cabinet Ministers, Deepak Kesarkar (Finance and Rural Development), Rajendra Waikar (Housing, Higher and Technical Education),Vijay Shivtare (Water Resources and Water Conservation), Sanjay Rathod (Revenue) and Dada Bhuse (C0-operation).
The Chief Minister made the portfolio allocations to the BJP’s Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State in the following manner: Girish Mahajan (Water Resources), Girish Bapat (Food & Civil Supplies and Parliamentary Affairs), Chandrashekhar Bawankule (Energy) Babanrao lonikar (Water Supplies and Sanitation) Rajkumar Badole (Social Justice and Special Assistance), all Cabinet Ministers, Ram Shinde (Home –rural, Marketing and Public Health), Vijay Deshmukh ( Public Works – Public undertakings, Transport, labour and Textiles, Raje Ambrish Atram (Tribal Development), Dr Ranjit Patil (Home-Urban, Urban Development, law & Judiciary and Parliamentary Affairs) and Pravin Pote-Patil (Industries & Mining, Environment, Public Works-excluding Public Undertakings), all Ministers of State.