After more than a month of forming the alliance government of the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress namely ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ government, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray finally expanded his Cabinet on monday. The cabinet expansion that took place at the Vidhan Bhavan(state legislature complex) saw as many as 36 cabinet members(nine from Shiv Sena, fourteen from NCP, ten from Congress and three from an Independent party) taking oath. The oath was administered by the State Governor, Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
Shiv Sena cabinet ministers took oath
Shiv Sena members who took the oath were Aaditya Thackeray, Anil Parab, Uday Samant, Sanjay Rathod, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse and Sandipan Bhumre. They were all sworn in as ministers. Incidentally, it was Aaditya who became the first person from his family to taste electoral success.
NCP cabinet minister took oath
NCP leader Ajit Pawar took oath as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister. This was the second time that he took oath as the deputy Chief Minister in two months. While earlier on November 23, he was sworn in as Deputy CM with former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, however, this time he took oath as part of the coalition government. Apart from him, those who were inducted in the cabinet were Dilip Walse Patil, Dhananjay Munde, Anil Deshmukh, Hassan Mushrif, Rajendra Shingne, Nawab Malik, Rajesh Tope, Balasaheb Patil and Jitendra Awhad.
Cabinet ministers of the Congress
Those Congress men who took oath as cabinet ministers were Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadettiwar, Varsha Gaikwad, Sunil Kedar, Amit Deshmukh, Yashomati Thakur, Aslam Shaikh and KC Padvi. Three members who were sworn in from the independent party were Bacchu Kadu, Shankarrao Gadakhand and Rajendra Yedravkar.
Here, it may be remembered that Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray had taken oath as a Chief Minister of the State on November 28 at the historic Shivaji Park in Dadar along with Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut of the Congress, Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai of the Shiv Sena and Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal of NCP.
The cabinet expansion which was likely to take place earlier this week was delayed because that entire state administration was in Nagpur for the winter session of the legislature till last week. The total strength of the ministry of the Maharashtra cabinet can be a maximum of 42 including the chief minister.
While the collation party is happy after taking oath; others are upset for some reason or the other. It has been reported that some MLAs were upset for not being invited for Maharashtra cabinet expansion function.
It is being said that Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena senior leader Sanjay Raut and his brother Sunil Raut are upset with their party and angry too for not giving Sunil Raut a cabinet berth. Both the brothers were conspicuous by their absence from the swearing in ceremony. Incidentally, Sanjay Raut had played a key role in the Sena’s government formation when he persuaded the NCP to rope in the Congress to support such a coalition.
According to sources, Sunil Raut is planning to bid the party a goodbye because of him not being inducted in the Uddhav cabinet. A few Sena MLA’s from Western Vidarbha are also upset as they were not given ministerial berths in the cabinet. All of them skipped the oath taking ceremony.
Also some supporters of Congress MLA Sangram Thopte from Bhor in Pune district staged a protest on Monday after he failed to find a berth in the newly-expanded cabinet. It is said that Thopte son of former minister Anantrao Thopte and 20 corporators of the Congress have resigned from the party in support of the former.
This kind of happenings always happens after a good thing is done. Resultantly, while some are happy that their dreams have finally come true, others are sad thinking why were they not made a part of it.
