10 August,2022 07:16 AM IST | Mumbai | Dharmendra Jore
Gulabrao Patil and Sudhir Mungantiwar, both former ministers, after they were sworn in at the Raj Bhavan on Tuesday. Pics/Ashish Raje
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The Cabinet expansion on Tuesday saw nine members each of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena take oath for the minister's office, 39 days after the government was formed. However, criticism followed the event over the induction of tainted MLAs of the chief minister's group, Sanjay Rathod and Abdul Sattar. Together, the 18 bring a lot of experience with them as the BJP and Shinde retained most ministers from previous cabinets.
All 18 ministers will be of Cabinet rank. Some former juniors have been promoted. The flip side was that the aspirants in waiting from both camps, from the Shinde group in particular, were left disappointed, and hoping for the best in future.
The contentious portfolio distribution was pending, but it could not be delayed as the expansion did, because the ministers need to get hold of things before the monsoon session of the state legislature begins on August 17. The BJP and Shinde are vying for important portfolios such as home, revenue, finance, urban development, water resources, energy, rural development, agriculture, tribal development and social justice.
As reported correctly by mid-day, the BJP picked its state unit president, former minister Chandrakant Patil, former ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, and former ministers of state Ravindra Chavan and Atul Save, former minister in the NCP-Congress government Vijaykumar Gavit, and a senior MLA and party's Mumbai unit president, Mangal Prabhat Lodha. Vikhe, the then opposition leader, had quit the Congress to join the BJP four months before the 2019 Assembly elections. He was made a minister in the last expansion of the Devendra Fadnavis government. Khade and Save had also served as cabinet minister and junior minister, respectively for a brief period in 2019.
Shinde preferred ministers from the Uddhav Thackeray government - Uday Samant, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod and Sandipan Bhumre, Abdul Sattar and Shambhuraj Desai (former ministers of state), Tanaji Sawant, a senior minister in the Fadnavis cabinet, and the group's spokesperson and former minister of state for home in the Fadnavis team, Deepak Kesarkar.
Thackeray's sitting ministers had joined Shinde in the revolt in June. The hot contenders, Bharat Gogawale and Sanjay Shirsat, who were not considered this time, are expected to be taken in the next expansion.
To pick ministers from 51 MLAs has turned out to be exhaustive exercise for Shinde, who spent Monday night and early Tuesday morning dealing with pressure that was mounted by the left-out MLAs, including independents.
In the sharing formula for the remaining 23 vacancies in the council of ministers, the BJP will get more than Shinde. So far, only 20, including the CM and Dy CM, are in the team. Neither BJP nor Shinde gave representation to women, independents and smaller parties, but they will be accommodated in the future.
Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis said the women MLAs will be taken in soon in the next expansion. He said since the MVA's first team too did not have a woman, the opposition held no right to criticise the new government.
Shinde's choice of Sanjay Rathod, who had resigned from the Uddhav Thackeray cabinet because his name was linked to the suicide of a woman in Pune, evoked strong criticism. Abdul Sattar's entry was weighed against the allegations that his daughters and son had benefited from the teachers' recruitment (TET) scam.
Interestingly, the BJP's vice-president, Chitra Wagh, who had been leading the allegations against Rathod, said that his induction was unfortunate and she would continue to fight in the court. The BJP, which had pressed for Rathod's resignation, said it was Wagh's personal opinion.
Activist Anjali Damania slammed the Shinde Sarkar. She said all parties bore the same qualities when it came to covering up. But Shinde defended Rathod, saying that the Thackeray government had given the MLA a clean chit. "The police have found nothing in their investigation in the case," he said.
About Sattar's case, the education department has claimed to have found no substance in the allegations. The minister said the allegations were baseless because his three daughters got jobs when the present recruitment scheme was not in place. Without naming Sattar, Opposition leader Ajit Pawar said some names could have been reconsidered by Shinde.
NCP's MP and Pawar's cousin, Supriya Sule had a different take on Rathod. She said it was the BJP that ran a smear campaign against him and demanded his resignation even as the then MVA partners insisted that Rathod had nothing to do with the suicide. "I'm happy that Rathod has been made a minister. But what about that woman who died?" she asked.
State BJP president who was the number two minister holding many important portfolios like revenue, PWD, agriculture in the Fadnavis government. The 63-year-old hails from Kolhapur district, but contested the 2019 Assembly election from Kothrud in Pune. A die hard RSS loyalist.
A firebrand six-term MLA, who represented Chandrapur and now Ballapur, he has served in the first (1995-99) and second BJP-Sena govts (2014-19). Born into an RSS family, he is a perennial CM contender, and led finance and forest departments in the Fadnavis regime. He is the only BJP minister from Vidarbha.
The six-term undefeated MLA who has always foreseen power shifts,, was a minister in the Shiv Sena and Congress govts before moving to the BJP in mid-2019. He was the opposition leader then representing the Congress. He quit and was soon drafted as the housing minister by Fadnavis. Patil, 63, represents Shirdi segment in Ahmednagar district.
Fadnavis's blue-eyed boy, who emerged as the main troubleshooter. Mahajan beats others when it comes to protesting in the house. He was suspended often, but has friends across party lines. His passion for providing healthcare services to the needy landed him the medical education department though he led the water resources department.
A Dalit face from Miraj constituency in Sangli district, Khade, 64, is an RSS and BJP loyalist, who has successfully challenged the NCP and Congress in their fiefdoms since 2004. In the reshuffle ahead of the 2019 Assembly polls, he was asked to lead the social justice department. He missed the bus earlier despite a resounding win over the Congress and NCP in 2014.
A tribal leader and teacher-turned-politician, Gavit, 67, faced charges in a disproportionate assets case before joining BJP in 2014. He was sacked after his daughter Heena contested LS polls on a BJP ticket in 2014 from Nandurbar. Now in BJP, he won Assembly poll from Nandurbar same year.
At 51, the Dombivli MLA has become a cabinet minister after serving as a junior minister in the Fadnavis government. He was a municipal councillor before winning the seat that is thickly populated by the BJP's middle class supporters. He hasn't lost since 2009 and played an important role in winning the Kalyan-Dombivli municipal polls for the BJP.
He is the son of Moreshwar Save, Shiv Sena's former Lok Sabha MP from Aurangabad, who shifted to the BJP after developing differences with the Sena leadership, which had sacked his father. Save, 60, represents Aurangabad (east) since 2014. The BJP has eyes on the city where it shared power with the Sena before parting ways.
A real estate baron from Mumbai, Lodha, 66, has been representing Malabar Hill since 1995. He comes from an RSS loyalist family that held top posts in judiciary and politics. He made Mumbai his turf and succeeded in electoral politics, but had to wait very long to get in the Cabinet.
The last to join the rebel Shinde gang in Guwahati had always been tipped to retain his position. He was higher and technical education minister in the MVA government. The Ratnagiri representative has been winning since 2004, first two terms as the NCP worker and then as the Sena's.
The Sena's most sought after campaigner shifted to Shinde after he failed to convince Thackeray. Comes from Jalgaon Rural Assembly constituency. He was a minister of state in the Fadnavis government and later promoted by Thackeray in the MVA formation. He has contributed significantly to Sena's growth in Khandesh.
Bhuse, 58, represents Malegaon Outer segment since 2004. The farmer's son sans a political background ended the dominance of the Congress loyalist Hire family and never looked back since 2004. He served as a junior minister between 2014 and 2019. He was made agriculture minister in the MVA government.
A four-time MLA since 2004 (Digras) Rathod belongs to the Banjara community. Rathod, 51, kept the Sena's saffron flag flying in central Vidarbha's cotton-rich, farm suicide belt of Yavatmal district. He was given a clean chit in the suicide of a woman in Pune, but Thackeray did not retain him.
Bhumre, 59, has been representing Paithan near Aurangabad since 1995. Defeated in 2009, he first became a minister in 2019 even as his juniors reaped perks of top positions. He worked as a slip boy in a sugar factory which he led as its chairman after some years.
The former Congressman joined the Sena in 2018. Sattar, 57, had already developed differences with the party that had made him a junior minister. When it came to becoming Cabinet minister, a controversy regarding his daughters and son's recruitment cropped up.
Desai, 55, hails from Shinde's native Satara district and represents Patan (since 2004). A die hard sainik in the NCP and Congress stronghold, Desai has been loyal to the Thackerays for long, but changed his mind when a coup came up. He was among the first batch and worked on others to join the rebellion.
Education and business baron Sawant, 58, had shown his extraordinary skills in winning MLC polls from local bodies in Yavatmal which was unknown territory. Knowing his prowess, Thackeray had exported Sawant from Marathwada to Vidarbha.
Former minister of state for home in the Fadnavis team, Kesarkar, 67, is not a true blue sainik. He came from the NCP and insists that he chose the Sena over the BJP. He represents Sawantwadi that shares a state border with Goa (2009 onwards).
