Vacant cabinet posts to be filled to pacify allies

As per the rules, the council of ministers can have a maximum of 43 members, including the chief minister. The current strength of the council is 29: the Shinde-led Sena and the BJP have ten ministers each while nine ministers are from the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP

MUMBAI: With just three months left for the Lok Sabha elections and barely a year to go before the next assembly elections, the ruling alliance is likely to fill the vacant slots in the Eknath Shinde-led state cabinet. A senior BJP minister said the long-pending cabinet expansion was being done to improve the functioning and reach of the government politically and also to pacify the two allies, chief minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. The exercise is likely to happen in the middle of this month, during the Navratri festival.

Mumbai, India – Sept 04, 2023: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde with Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar address a press conference after a meeting on the Maratha reservation, at Sahyadri Guest House, in Mumbai, India, on Monday, Sept 04, 2023. (Photo by Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo)

As per the rules, the council of ministers can have a maximum of 43 members, including the chief minister. The current strength of the council is 29: the Shinde-led Sena and the BJP have ten ministers each while nine ministers are from the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP.

According to information, the three parties have decided to fill the remaining 14 slots. “The BJP wants eight while it has offered three each to the Sena and the NCP,” said the above-mentioned BJP minister. “But both our allies are asking for four berths each. We will reach a consensus, as it is not such a major issue.”

An aide of Shinde said that the issue was discussed by Shinde and Fadnavis during their two trips on Wednesday and Friday last week to Delhi.

The first meeting happened after Ajit Pawar expressed unhappiness by skipping the state cabinet meeting. Ajit has been insisting on the power-sharing formula being implemented as early as possible so that political plans can be worked out to enable the BJP to try and win most of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

Shinde too is of the same opinion. “The first step was to rejig the guardian ministers to give some districts to Ajit’s ministers,” said the aide. “The second is to expand the state cabinet. It is being done now.”

Of course, the exercise is not without the pulls and pressures of a coalition government. “Apart from four ministerial berths each, Shinde and Ajit are also staking a claim to significant government undertakings such as CIDCO and MHADA,” said the BJP minister. “This will be the next step after the cabinet expansion.”

Along with the expansion, there will be a rejig of portfolios held by the ministers, as new ministers will have to be allocated departments. “Currently chief minister Shinde and deputy chief minister Fadnavis hold multiple portfolios,” said a BJP functionary. “A few ministers also have more departments. There will be a reshuffle of the portfolios to some extent. It will be more like giving additional portfolios to new ministers.”