The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministry in Maharashtra was expanded with five new ministers, including one of cabinet rank, being sworn in yesterday at the Raj Bhavan by Governor P C Alexander.
The ministry now has a strength of 44 with the expansion.
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Congress MLA who resigned from the assembly and joined the Shiv Sena, was the first to take oath as a cabinet minister.
Two independents, Keshavrao Narayanrao Patil, alias Babasaheb Dhabekar and Vijay Kumar Krishnarao Gavit besides Arjun Panditrao Khoktar of the Shiv Sena and Vinod Yeshwantrao Gudadhe Patil of the BJP were sworn in as ministers of state.
Chief Minister Manohar Joshi said that the portfolios would be announced in a day or two.
Dhabekar has been reinducted into the ministry after he was earlier dropped from it. With the swearing in of two independents, there are as many as six independents in the ministry. The minority Sena-BJP government has been depending on support of the independents.
