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12 new guardian ministers, CM mollifies irate Ajit Pawar
Most crucially, Pawar was appointed as the guardian minister for Pune, a position the BJP had long been unwilling to concede
Mumbai A day after deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar skipped the state cabinet meeting and also the meeting with BJP’s central leadership in Delhi, allegedly to express his displeasure over the power-sharing formula, CM Shinde took an accommodative step to mollify his deputy.
On Wednesday, Eknath Shinde announced a list of new guardian ministers for 12 districts in the state of which seven belong to Pawar’s breakaway party. Most crucially, Pawar was appointed as the guardian minister for Pune, a position that the BJP had long been unwilling to concede. He replaces BJP leader Chandrakant Patil who has now been appointed guardian minister of Solapur and Amravati. The status of Pune guardian minister is important as all local development work, especially that goes through District Planning Development Committee, falls under his purview. Western Maharashtra is at the heart of Pawar’s political clout. For BJP this portfolio was important as Chandrakant Patil is already an MLA from Pune and it would have helped consolidate his hold in the city.
Despite Wednesday’s announcement, NCP insiders say there are still negotiations going on about the inclusion of the names of two of their leaders, Chhagan Bhujbal and Aditi Tatkare who are not in the list. Tatkare has been batting to become the guardian minister of Raigad while Bhujbal has staked his claim for Nashik. At present Shiv Sena minister Uday Samant is the guardian minister for Raigad and Dada Bhuse, also of the Shiv Sena is the guardian minister for Nashik. There is also no clarity over the next cabinet expansion, they pointed out and the appointment of 12 vacant MLC positions under Governor’s quota.
Among others who made the cut in Wednesday’s list are Dilip Walse Patil who has been appointed as Buldhana guardian minister, Hasan Mushrif is guardian minister for Kolhapur district, Dhananjay Munde becomes guardian minister for Beed, Dharmrao Baba Atram gets Gondia district while Sanjay Bansode and Anil Patil have been appointed as the new guardian ministers for Parbhani and Nandurbar respectively.
“Bhujbal is one of the senior-most ministers in the state cabinet and his claim cannot be ignored. We will have to get Nashik for him. As far as Raigad is concerned, the party is ready to give up its claim on it and has sought Ratnagiri instead for Aditi Tatkare. However, that too has also not been given to us as of now,” said the NCP insider.
Going by the revised list of guardian ministers, BJP has given up guardian minister positions in the four districts of Pune, Nandurbar, Beed and Gondia while Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena has had to concede three districts — Buldhana, Parbhani and Kolhapur.
The Ajit Pawar camp has sought a total 14 berths in the government equal to what they had in the MVA government and also equal to what Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena holds in the present coalition government. Sources close to Ajit Pawar said they expect one more cabinet berth and three junior minister positions in the next cabinet expansion whenever it happens. The NCP faction has also sought leadership of any of the two institutions between state minority commission, wakf board and the Maulana Azad Finance Corporation.
As far as appointments on government-run boards and corporations are concerned, the formula for 40:30:30 has been finalized among the three parties in which 40 will be given to BJP and 30 boards each will be divided among the other two parties — Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar), insiders said.
On Tuesday, Shinde and Fadnavis had gone to Delhi to iron out the power-sharing formula. “The issue related to the guardian minister posts was taken up on urgent basis as it had been pending for more than three months. All the parties are of the opinion that cabinet expansion and the nominations to legislative council is unlikely to be done immediately as it may lead to discontent among the aspirants from the three parties,” said a senior BJP leader requesting anonymity. With regards to the 12 MLC seats in the governor’s quota, BJP wants a division on 6:3:3 with the majority in its favour while the Ajit camp has been adamant on 4 seats.
