Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today expanded his cabinet with 29 more ministers being sworn in, including 19 of cabinet rank, taking the ministry’s total strength to 40.
Chavan attempted to maintain a regional balance and introduce new faces in the Congress list while its ally, the Nationalist Congress Party, has maintained a status quo in its list.
The oath of office and secrecy was administered by Governor K Shankarnarayanan at a function at the Raj Bhavan.
In the 40-member council of ministers, 20 members were from the Maratha community, six belonged to the other backward classes (OBC), four scheduled tribes, three from backward classes, two muslims and one from the minority Marwari community.
Only two women, Varsha Gaikwad from the Congress and Faujia Khan of NCP, were inducted in the cabinet. They had earlier held positions of ministers of state in the Ashok Chavan ministry.
Former revenue minister Narayan Rane was given industry and ports development, while Balasaheb Thorat was allocated the revenue ministry. Deputy CM Ajit Pawar has retained energy and has additional charge of finance and planning departments.
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Congress dropped Subhash Zhanak, Abdul Sattar, Vijay Wadettiwar and Ramesh Bagwe — members of the Ashok Chavan-led cabinet. The party introduced seven new faces including Madhukar Chavan, Sanjay Deotale, Satej Patil, Rajendra Mulak, Rajendra Gavi and DEP Sawant. “Congress has added at least seven new faces. Focus was given on regional balance,” Prithviraj Chavan told Business Standard.
He said the cabinet would hold meetings to review the situation of all regions before the winter session of the state assembly in Nagpur.
The NCP inducted five more cabinet ministers and five ministers of state without making any changes. NCP’s cabinet ministers, who were sworn in today were Ramraje Nimbalkar, Anil Deshmukh, Bababrao Pachpute, Rajesh Tope and Hasan Mushrif while Bhaskar Jadhav, Sachin Ahir, Gulabrao Deokar, Prakash Solunkhe and Faujia Khan were inducted as MoSes.