Mumbai: The much-anticipated cabinet expansion of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ government took place on Sunday at the Raj Bhavan in Nagpur, 10 days after Fadnavis was sworn in as Chief Minister for the third time on December 5. A total of 39 MLAs were inducted into the cabinet during a grand ceremony.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 19 ministerial positions, with key leaders like Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Ashish Shelar, Chandrakant Patil, Girish Mahajan, Ganesh Naik, Mangal Pratap Lodha, Jaykumar Rawal, Pankaja Munde, and Atul Sawe taking oath.
From Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, 11 leaders, including Dada Bhuse, Shambhuraj Desai, Sanjay Rathod, Uday Samant, Gulabrao Patil, and Sanjay Shirsat, were sworn in as ministers.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) claimed nine cabinet berths, with leaders like Manikrao Kokate, Dattatray Vithoba Bharne, Hasan Mushrif, Aditi Sunil Tatkare, and Dhananjay Munde among those taking oath.
This expansion comes after the Mahayuti alliance’s sweeping victory in the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly elections, where it won 230 out of 288 seats. The BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats, while the Shiv Sena and NCP secured 57 and 41 seats, respectively.
Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held a grand roadshow in Nagpur, celebrating his return to his “janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi” (birthplace and workplace). Fadnavis, accompanied by his wife Amruta Fadnavis and BJP state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, rode in an open-top vehicle decorated with banners welcoming the “son-of-the-soil.”
However, the expansion was not without controversy. Naresh Bhondekar, a Shiv Sena MLA from the Bhandara-Pavani constituency, resigned from his party post after being denied a cabinet berth, though he retained his MLA position. Bhondekar, a three-time MLA, alleged that his repeated messages to Eknath Shinde and other leaders went unanswered.
Additionally, Republican Party of India (RPI) chief and Union Minister Ramdas Athavale expressed disappointment over not receiving a ministry for his party and stated that he would take up the matter with Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda. NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who also missed out on a cabinet berth, was notably absent from his party’s gathering before the oath ceremony.
Deepak Kesarkar, the former Primary Education Minister in Eknath Shinde’s government, also skipped the event. Speaking at the Sai Baba Temple in Nagpur, he stated, “As an MLA, I’ll have to attend the session, and I’ll do that.”
With the induction of these ministers, 42 cabinet berths are now filled, marking the completion of the expansion. The Mahayuti government aims to solidify its leadership and governance agenda in the state following its electoral success.