Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expanded his council of ministers Sunday to placate key defectors from opposition parties, allies of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as party hopefuls from across the state.
The cabinet expansion comes even though state assembly elections are just about three months away.
Eight new cabinet ministers, including former leader of opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, and five junior ministers took oath at 11 am at the Raj Bhavan in the presence of Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and the chief minister.
Fadnavis also used the exercise to drop six cabinet and junior ministers, especially the controversial Prakash Mehta, the BJP legislator from Ghatkopar in charge of the housing portfolio, who was battling graft charges.
The cabinet expansion comes a day before the final state legislative session under this government is scheduled to start. This is Fadnavis’ second cabinet expansion, the first was in July 2016.
Speaking to reporters after the cabinet expansion, BJP Minister Girish Mahajan said, “It is true that there is not much time left. But there is a lot of scope for work. We have a bigger team now, more ministers and that will help us do more.”
Accommodating defectors and allies
The very first person to take oath as cabinet minister was former Congress MLA Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who until the last legislative session used to enter the Vidhan Bhavan premises as the leader of opposition. Vikhe Patil, who had resigned as Congress MLA earlier this month, can continue as minister as, according to the rules, he needs to get elected to either house within six months.
The former Congress leader quit the post of the leader of opposition soon after his son, Sujay Vikhe Patil, joined the BJP and contested the Lok Sabha election as the party candidate from his much coveted Ahmednagar constituency. Sujay joined the BJP as he wanted to contest the election from Ahmednagar, a constituency which has been with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) within the Congress-NCP seat sharing agreement. Sujay even won the election, during which Vikhe Patil actively campaigned for his son despite being with the Congress at the time.
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The second minister to take oath Sunday was Jaydutt Kshirsagar, a former NCP leader who was also a minister in the erstwhile Congress-NCP government. Kshirsagar, who hails from Beed constituency, had actively campaigned for the BJP’s Pritam Munde from the seat against the NCP candidate before quitting the party to join the Shiv Sena.
Besides inducting Kshirsagar from the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis gave the BJP’s most important ally in the state another cabinet post. Sena’s Tanaji Sawant, one of the party’s wealthiest MLCs who joined it just three years ago, also took oath as cabinet minister Sunday.
Before this expansion, the Shiv Sena had four cabinet ministers and seven junior ministers.
Fadnavis also handed a junior ministership to the Ramdas Athawale-led Republican Party of India, inducting party leader Avinash Mahatekar, to keep the ally happy after not giving the party a single seat to contest in the Lok Sabha election.
Mahatekar is the first RPI nominee to be a part of CM Fadnavis’ cabinet.
Expansion to fill key portfolios before elections
Besides accommodating defectors and allies, this pre-election cabinet expansion was also required to fill key portfolios that have been lying vacant and for which Fadnavis has temporarily allotted additional responsibilities to existing ministers, multiple sources from the BJP said.
For instance, even as Maharashtra has been reeling under an acute drought over the past few months, there is no full-time minister for the agriculture portfolio. Former agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar died in May last year, after which Fadnavis initially kept the portfolio with himself and then handed it as additional responsibility to BJP Minister Chandrakant Patil, already looking after key departments such as revenue, relief and rehabilitation and public works.
Similarly, portfolios such as food and civil supplies, parliamentary affairs and health also have been given as additional departments to existing ministers. The food and civil supplies and parliamentary affairs department fell vacant after BJP’s Girish Bapat, who held the charges, recently got elected to the Lok Sabha, while the health department hasn’t had a full-time minister after Shiv Sena’s Deepak Sawant resigned as MLC when the party did not nominate him for a second term.
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Besides Vikhe Patil, Kshirsagar, Sawant and Mahatekar, other leaders who the party accommodated in the council of ministers include Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar, Mumbai BJP MLA Yogesh Sagar, Vidarbha’s Anil Bonde, Ashok Uike and Parinay Phuke, Jalgaon’s Sanjay Kute, Sangli’s Suresh Khade, Maval’s Sanjay Bhegade and Auranagad’s Atul Save.
The BJP / SS are on track to win 200 of the state’s 288 Assembly seats.