Maharashtra chief Minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will expand the council of ministers on Tuesday, 40 days after they formed a new government in the state, leaders from both camps said on Monday.
The swearing-in ceremony is expected to be held at Raj Bhavan at 11am and six to eight legislators from each of the two sides could take oath, people familiar with the preparations said.
On Monday, Shinde and Fadnavis held a meeting at the former’s bungalow Nandanvan at Malabar Hill for over an hour and a half as a precursor to the cabinet expansion. According to the deal said to have been struck by the BJP and the Shinde camp, the former, which has 106 MLAs will get 27 cabinet berths while the 50-member Shinde camp will get 16.
“Six to eight legislators from each of the two parties will be inducted in the council of ministers as part of the expansion of the cabinet. The decision over the allocation of ministerial berths to a particular legislator has not been finalised yet, though the division between the two parties has been decided. The decision over the portfolio allocation to the legislators sworn-in is expected to be taken late on Tuesday evening,”said a senior BJP legislator, who was part of the deliberations within the two parties.
“The final call over the names of the legislators to be inducted from the BJP as well the allocation of the portfolios is taken by our central leadership. For the Shinde camp, the names are to be decided by the chief minister but the list is expected to be endorsed by our central leadership, which has been at the centre of all the decisions during the formation of the Shinde-Fadnavis government,” said the leader cited above.
Senior legislators Chandrakant Patil, the state BJP president, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan and Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil from the BJP and Gulabrao Patil, Bacchu Kadu, Sandipan Bhumre, Sanjay Shirsat, Uday Samant and Anil Babar from the Shinde faction are among those expected to take oath on Tuesday, alliance insiders said.
Instead of filling in all 43 berths in the council of ministers, the Shinde-Fadnavis coalition is likely to carry out a limited expansion and induct more ministers later. This is being done considering the hearing in the Supreme Court on a clutch of petitions over the change of guard in Maharashtra, whereby the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was ousted following a coup by Shinde, who walked out with 40 of the 55 Shiv Sena MLAs (including himself).
A leader from the Shinde camp said that by deciding to expand the state cabinet in a phased manner, they were also trying to keep potential discontent among aspirants under control.
“There will not be dissident voices in the BJP, but almost all 50 legislators (including independents) from the Shinde camp are aspiring for induction in the cabinet. Nine of them, including Shinde, were ministers in the previous Thackeray government and they claimed preference while picking the names for the berths. Some of them have already warned the leadership with extreme steps if they do not get a place in the cabinet,” the leader said.
The monsoon session of the state legislature is expected to be held from August 17 and is likely to last for four days.
“The monsoon session, which has been postponed by at least three weeks because of the delay in expansion of the cabinet, was initially planned to be held from August 10 after the second phase of the cabinet expansion on Tuesday. The session is now expected to be held on August 17 and 18 and August 22 and 23,” said an official from Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the government of Maharashtra.
While there was speculation in political circles that the BJP could opt for the “Gujarat pattern”, mirroring the decision to drop all incumbent ministers and bringing in a fresh set of faces, party leaders said that was unlikely.
“There may not be any major surprises in store. The party leadership may not prefer to do something disruptive at a time when the Lok Sabha elections are less than two years away,” said a senior BJP leader.
The expansion was delayed as the Shinde group, which enjoys the support of 50 legislators, was upset at being denied control of important portfolios like home, finance, water resources and rural development, which may go to the senior partner, BJP leaders said.
