New Delhi: The first meeting of the Eknath Shinde-led cabinet in Maharashtra is scheduled to take place today after the expansion of cabinet took place on Tuesday, reported news agency ANI. A total of 18 MLAs took the oath to become ministers in the Maharashtra cabinet with 9 legislators each from the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party.
Among leaders from BJP which were inducted in the cabinet include party's state chief Chandrakant Patil, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save, and Mangalprabhat Lodha.
From the Shiv Sena faction, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai were sworn-in as the minister.
The cabinet, which had only two members earlier, was expanded on Tuesday after over 40 days since the new BJP-Shiv Sena government came into power. Eknath Shinde was sworn in as Maharashtra’s Chief Minister while Devendra Fadnavis took office as the Deputy Chief Minister after Uddhav Thackeray stepped down as the CM and legislator from Maharashtra Assembly.
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The next round of expansion would take place later, an aide of Shinde was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.
So far, the chief minister and deputy chief minister have taken at least 13 Cabinet decisions, such as bringing back the Jalyukta Shivar scheme, which was known to be Fadnavis' flagship when he was CM, and moving the contentious Metro car shed for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro back to Aarey Colony, reversing the MVA's decision.
The new BJP-Shiv Sena government was formed in Maharashtra after Eknath Shinde turned rebel taking majority of Shiv Sena MLAs on his side and toppling the Maha Vikaas Aghaadi government, an alliance between Shiv Sena, Natioanlist Congress Party and Congress.