Maharashtra cabinet to be expanded today, allies may share 14-18 berths

MUMBAI: More than 40 days after he was sworn in as chief minister and after a number of assurances, Eknath Shinde will expand his cabinet at Raj Bhavan on Tuesday. According to reports, 14 new cabinet members-seven each from BJP and the Shinde camp-will be given the oath of office. If the BJP high command permits, nine members from each side-18 in all instead of 14-will be sworn in.
According to a senior BJP leader, the BJP's nine frontrunners are Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Atul Save, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Ravindra Chavan and Vijay Kumar Gavit.
Cabinet expansion: Controversial legislators may not get look-in
Allies BJP and the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena will share berths equally when cabinet expansion takes place on Tuesday. From the Shinde camp the main contenders are Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Uday Samant, Sandipan Bhumre, Abdul Sattar, Shambhuraj Desai, Rajendra Yedrawkar, Bharat Gogawale, Sanjay Shirsat and Bacchu Kadu. Of the names, BJP’s Mangal Prabhat Lodha’s is the only new one for the cabinet as, despite the fact that he was among the seniormost legislators in the state, he was never considered for a cabinet berth earlier.
Sena MLA Abdul Sattar’s name was doing the rounds but after Sattar’s name figured in the TET scam on Monday, it is now for Shinde to take a call on whether he should be inducted. “If Sattar is included in the cabinet, both Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis will have to face the wrath of not only the opposition but the common man,” the BJP leader said. The BJP leader said ex-minister Ashish Shelar was also in the zone of consideration, but his name was dropped as the BJP leadership is considering appointing him as state party president in place of Chandrakant Patil. Patil was revenue minister in the Fadnavis government (2014-19), Mungantiwar was finance minister, and Vikhe Patil was housing minister. Save too was a cabinet member, Chavan was minister of state, and Gavit was a minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. Gulabrao Patil, Bhuse, Samant, Bhumre, Sattar, Desai, Kadu and Yedrawkar were all cabinet members in the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government who revolted against the Shiv Sena leadership and joined the Shinde camp.
The BJP leader said BJP’s list of seven legislators was to be finalised by Fadnavis on Monday night, while Shinde would finalise the list of his legislators on Tuesday morning. “Shinde has invited all legislators of his camp on Tuesday at a meeting at Sahyadri, where he will finalise the list. If BJP high command grants permission, a list of nine legislators each will be submitted to Raj Bhavan, otherwise seven names will be given to the governor,” he said. In Nanded, CM Shinde said names of cabinet ministers will be finalised late Monday night or Tuesday.
The BJP leader said the policy of the Shinde-Fadnavis government is to ensure honest and clean legislators are included in the cabinet to avoid public criticism. “Our effort will be to ensure that people of doubtful integrity are not inducted in the cabinet, otherwise most of the time of the new government will be spent in tackling criticism and public wrath,” he said. Controversial Mumbai District Central Coop Bank chairman Praveen Darekar and OBC leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule may not be included in keeping with BJP’s policy of giving an opportunity to leaders directedly elected from the people. “Darekar and Bawankule will have to wait for a while. They may be inducted after the monsoon session of the legislature,” the BJP leader said. -Inputs by Mohammed Akhef in Aurangabad.