Maharashtra: 39 ministers take oath, may be replaced after 2.5 years

NAGPUR/MUMBAI: Ten days after chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputies, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, were sworn in on December 5 in Mumbai, 39 legislators from the three ruling parties took oath as ministers and ministers of state at Raj Bhavan in Nagpur on Sunday. While 19 BJP MLAs were sworn in, the Shiv Sena and NCP inducted 11 and nine MLAs respectively. Of the 39, 33 are cabinet ministers while six are ministers of state. Fadnavis said the portfolio allocation will be done in the next two days.

Eighteen of the 39 ministers who took oath are first-timers; seven of these from the BJP, six from the Shiv Sena and five from the NCP. This has led to some rumblings among the Mahayuti’s senior leaders who were part of the previous government; however, the parties have decided to solve the scarce-berths-many-contenders imbroglio by changing ministers after two and a half years. Eknath Shinde has reportedly gone to the extent of getting undertakings from his ministers that they will quit their posts after half a term. “We have a ‘perform or perish’ policy,” he said. “Whover performs will stay.”

Among the BJP ministers to take oath were Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Pankaja Munde, Ashish Shelar, Ganesh Naik, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Nitesh Rane, and two women ministers of state, Madhuri Misal and Meghana Bordikar. The Shiv Sena ministers include Uday Samant, Shambhuraj Desai, Bharat Gogawale and Sanjay Shirsat, and two ministers of state, Ashish Jaiswal and Yogesh Kadam. From the NCP, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Aditi Tatkare and Narhari Zirwalwere sworn in with one minister of state, Indranil Naik.

The three parties together dropped 12 ministers from the previous government’s 29. While the BJP axed senior leaders Sudhir Mungantiwar, Ravindra Chavan, Vijaykumar Gavit and Suresh Khade, the Shiv Sena dropped Tanaji Sawant, Deepak Kesarkar and Abdul Sattar—Sawant and Sattar had corruption charges against them, and the BJP had insisted on excluding them from the cabinet. Both Kesarkar and Sawant tried to meet Shinde on Saturday but could not get an audience despite waiting for five hours.

NCP chief Ajit Pawar was very keen on fresh faces but the seniors insisted on one more chance, which was eventually denied by the party leadership. The NCP has thus let go of senior leader Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse Patil, Anil Patil, Dharmarao Baba Atram and Sanjay Bansode. To cushion the blow somewhat, the party will appoint one of the dropped seniors to the post of deputy assembly speaker, which the BJP has conceded to it. Walse Patil is likely to be pacified with a governor position, though this is yet to be confirmed by the BJP leadership.

If the BJP approves, Walse Patil will be rehabilitated but the others will have to stay out of the government for a while as indicated by Ajit Pawar in a party rally in Nagpur on Sunday morning. “It has been decided to replace some of the ministers after two and a half years to make way for other faces,” he said. “The berths are fewer than the capable lawmakers from our three parties. To address this, we have agreed to replace some of the ministers after one half-term. This will help us give representation to all the districts.”

The Mahayuti government has also struck a regional and caste-community balance while inducting the new ministers. Marathwada, the region that gave it the highest number of seats—41 of 46—has been given six ministerial berths, while western Maharashtra has the highest tally of 10 ministers. Vidarbha has the second highest nine, Konkan, including Thane, has eight and North Maharashtra has seven representatives in the state cabinet. Ashish Shelar and Mangal Prabhat Lodha are the two inductees from the Mumbai quota.

Despite a tremendous response from the Ladki Bahin Yojana, only four women from two parties—BJP and NCP—have secured a place in the newly formed ministerial council. They are Pankaja Munde, Madhuri Misal and Meghana Mordikar from the BJP and Aditi Tatkare from the NCP. The Shiv Sena has not nominated any woman MLA. The cabinet has also tried to balance out the caste equation by giving representation to Marathas, OBCs, Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The expansion of the cabinet was delayed owing to the tussle between the BJP and the Shiv Sena over the distribution of departments. The Sena had been pushing for home, urban development and revenue while the BJP refused to concede the home department to any other party. The expansion of the ministerial council is timely, given that the legislature’s winter session begins from Monday. The opposition, which is in its weakest position in recent history, would have tried to corner the government on the fact of a lack of ministers apart from the chief minister and his two deputies.

“Barring a few key departments like revenue and housing, most of the portfolios will be the same as held by the three parties in the previous government,” said a BJP leader. The three parties have also decided to distribute the statutory boards and corporations among themselves in the next three months.