Since June 30, Maharashtra government has essentially been a two-man government till now including CM Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis.
However, today, nine MLAs each from BJP and the Shinde camp took oath as Maharashtra ministers in front of Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai. Chandrakant Patil and Vijay Kumar Gavit are among the nine BJP leaders who took oath as ministers in Maharashtra Cabinet.
From the Shinde camp, Uday Samant, Dada Bhuse, Sandipan Bhumre, Rajendra Patil Yadravkar, Shambhuraj Desai, Gulabrao Patil, Sanjay Shirsat, Deepak Kesarkar and Bachchu Kadu are part of the names who administered oath today.
Uday Samant, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sandipan Bhumre, Shambhuraj Desai, Bachchu Kadu and Rajendra Patil Yedravkar and CM Shinde were all part of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi(MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
While from the BJP, Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Suresh Khade, Atul Save, Mangalprabhat Lodha, Vijaykumar Gavit and Ravindra Chavan are now named as ministers.
Chandrakant Patil is the current BJP Maharashtra State President whereas Atul Save, Sudhir Mungatiwar and Vijaykumar Gavit have all been ministers in the previous governments.
Eknath Shinde took oath as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on June 30 after Uddhav Thackeray resigned as the Chief Minister following a rebellion led by Shinde.
The tussle between BJP and Shinde-led Sena would be over the issue of plum portfolios such as Home Ministry or Finance Ministry. While Shinde camp argues that it is because of their rebellion that the current formation is possible and they should get the plum portfolios. BJP leaders would claim that being the single largest party by a margin they should get the plum portfolios.
Opposition NCP and Shiv Sena have been criticizing the current government for not expanding the government and asking him the reason for the delay in the cabinet expansion.
