Mumbai, July 14: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar was on Friday allocated the key Finance and Planning portfolio while some of the eight other NCP leaders who joined the state cabinet with him a fortnight ago were also given important portfolios like cooperation and agriculture.
Ajit Pawar getting the finance portfolio is significant as there was stiff opposition to it from Shiv Sena MLAs led by Bharat Gogawale and Prahar party legislator Bachchu Kadu, who claimed that the NCP leader had blocked funds for them when he was finance minister in the MVA government and was responsible for their rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership.
In Friday’s portfolio allocation, the Nationalist Congress Party’s Dilip Walse Patil bagged the cooperation ministry, earlier held by the BJP’s Atul Save. NCP’s Dhananjay Munde got the agriculture portfolio, earlier handled by the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s Abdul Sattar.
There was speculation that the state ministry expansion will also happen on Friday. But no new ministers were inducted and there were unconfirmed reports that an expansion will take place after the Maharashtra Legislature’s monsoon session which begins in Mumbai on July 17.
There are now 28 cabinet ministers in Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s government but no minister of state. The ministry can have a maximum of 43 members.
Not only Ajit Pawar got the finance ministry on Friday which can upset the Shiv Sena ministers, but some cabinet ministers also lost a few of their portfolios to the NCP. Among them were Sattar and Rathod of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the BJP’s Mangal Prabhat Lodha.
Chief minister Shinde himself gave up five ministries — PWD (public sector undertakings), Marketing, Disaster Management, Relief and Rehabilitation, Soil and Water Conservation and Minority Development. (PTI)
