MUMBAI: Days before the monsoon session of the assembly, allocation of portfolios in Maharashtra’s cabinet has been finalised with BJP securing key ministries, including home and finance for its leader Devendra Fadnavis.
Chief minister Eknath Shinde has kept a large number of berths for himself, presumably to distribute some to supporters in the Shiv Sena in the next phase of cabinet expansion. This includes urban development, public enterprises, social justice, environment, general administration, transport, minority affairs. Similarly, Fadnavis has been tasked with home, finance, planning, law and judiciary, water resources, housing, energy, some of which may be divested to future BJP recruits in the cabinet.
Agriculture has gone to Abdul Sattar, a rebel Sena MLA facing allegations that his daughters were beneficiaries of a teacher entrance test scam. Industries is with Uday Samant, again a prominent Sena face in the Shinde camp’s campaign against the Uddhav Thackeray faction. However, in the present scheme, most high-profile ministries including revenue (Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil), higher education (Chandrakant Patil), rural development (Girish Mahajan) have gone to BJP.
According to a senior BJP cabinet member, Fadnavis had a big say in allocations to both parties. The new-look cabinet underscores the BJP leadership’s decision to give the deputy CM a prominent role in the administration and blunt the opposition’s attack on Shinde. And though there is talk of discontentment over portfolios within both BJP and Sena, Fadnavis denied it. “All are happy, no discontentment,” he told mediapersons.
Chief minister Eknath Shinde has kept a large number of berths for himself, presumably to distribute some to supporters in the Shiv Sena in the next phase of cabinet expansion. This includes urban development, public enterprises, social justice, environment, general administration, transport, minority affairs. Similarly, Fadnavis has been tasked with home, finance, planning, law and judiciary, water resources, housing, energy, some of which may be divested to future BJP recruits in the cabinet.
Agriculture has gone to Abdul Sattar, a rebel Sena MLA facing allegations that his daughters were beneficiaries of a teacher entrance test scam. Industries is with Uday Samant, again a prominent Sena face in the Shinde camp’s campaign against the Uddhav Thackeray faction. However, in the present scheme, most high-profile ministries including revenue (Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil), higher education (Chandrakant Patil), rural development (Girish Mahajan) have gone to BJP.
According to a senior BJP cabinet member, Fadnavis had a big say in allocations to both parties. The new-look cabinet underscores the BJP leadership’s decision to give the deputy CM a prominent role in the administration and blunt the opposition’s attack on Shinde. And though there is talk of discontentment over portfolios within both BJP and Sena, Fadnavis denied it. “All are happy, no discontentment,” he told mediapersons.
