Maha Cabinet Expansion: 18 MLAs take oath as ministers in Shinde-led govt

Of the total 18 ministers, 9 are from the BJP while the remaining 9 are from the Shiv Sena. Chandrakant Patil, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Vijay Kumar Gavit are among the nine BJP leaders who took oath as ministers.

Mumbai: The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government expanded its two-member ministry with 18 MLAs swearing in as ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai on Tuesday. The oath was administered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, 41 days after Eknath Shinde took oath as the CM followed by the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena government in the state.

Of the total 18 ministers, 9 are from the BJP while the remaining 9 are from the Shiv Sena. The new BJP ministers include Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.

From the Shinde group, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai were sworn in as ministers. None of the 18 ministers is a woman.

Earlier on Tuesday, ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, Shinde met 40 of the 55 Shiv Sena legislators backing him for the expansion of his two-member ministry. The swearing-in event, scheduled to begin at 11 am, was delayed by 15 minutes.

This has taken the strength of the Maharashtra ministry to 20, less than half the maximum allowed strength of 43. No minister of state was sworn in today. There will be another ministry expansion later, an aide of Shinde said.

Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy CM earlier on June 30 after the long ongoing political drama going on in the state lost some heat.

While BJP has inducted Lodha, who hails from Mumbai, the Shinde group hasn't included any legislator from the financial capital, where municipal corporation elections are slated later this year. (With Agency Inputs)