Aaditya, 35 others swear in as Uddhav Thackeray expands cabinet | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Aaditya, 35 others swear in as Uddhav Thackeray expands cabinet

Hindustan Times, Mumbai | By, Mumbai
Dec 31, 2019 02:25 AM IST

Of the 36 who took oath on Monday, 26 were sworn-in as Cabinet ministers and 10 took oath as ministers of state or junior ministers.

Thirty-six ministers were inducted into chief minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray’s council of ministers in Maharashtra on Monday afternoon, including his 29-year-old son, Aaditya Thackeray, and Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Ajit Pawar who was sworn-in as deputy chief minister, in a ceremony held at Vidhan Bhavan. This is the first time that a father and son will work together in the Maharashtra Cabinet.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar with chief minister Uddhav Thackeray during the swearing-in ceremony for Maharashtra cabinet at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai on Monday.(PTI)
NCP leader Ajit Pawar with chief minister Uddhav Thackeray during the swearing-in ceremony for Maharashtra cabinet at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai on Monday.(PTI)

Of the 36 who took oath on Monday, 26 were sworn-in as Cabinet ministers and 10 took oath as ministers of state or junior ministers.

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Shiv Sena chief Thackeray’s Cabinet now includes several Congress and NCP heavyweights, such as former CM Ashok Chavan, former deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal, Balasaheb Thorat, Jayant Patil, Dilip Walse-Patil, Anil Deshmukh, Hasan Mushrif and Rajesh Tope, who have all handled significant portfolios in the past. Congress, however, kept its other former CM, Prithviraj Chavan, out of the Cabinet.

Thackeray had taken oath as the CM on November 28 along with six ministers, two each from the three parties — Sena, NCP and Congress — forming the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). Thackeray’s council of ministers is at full strength with 43 ministers, including 33 of Cabinet rank and 10 junior ministers.

The portfolios are likely to be announced in a day or two.

Ajit Pawar, NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s nephew, took oath as DCM for a second time in just over a month. His last stint as DCM to Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Devendra Fadnavis was only for three days as the government collapsed on November 26. Pawar has held the DCM post twice earlier — from November 2010 to September 2012 and then December 2012 to September 2014. There are three women among the 36, including two of cabinet rank, both from the Congress — Varsha Gaikwad (Mumbai) and Yashomati Thakur (Vidarbha) — and one from NCP, Aditi Tatkare (Konkan). Gaikwad has held a cabinet rank in the earlier Congress government.

The new council will also have four Muslim ministers, including two from the NCP, Nawab Malik (Mumbai) and Hasan Mushrif (Kolhapur); one from Congress, Aslam Shaikh (Mumbai) and one from Sena, Abdul Sattar (Marathwada). Sattar, a Congress MLA, joined Sena ahead of the Assembly polls in October.

The new council has a majority of Maratha leaders (19), followed by OBCs (9), Dalits (3) and one tribal leader, besides others. Marathas have traditionally dominated the state polity and all three parties have given a generous share to this community, which makes up roughly 32% of the state’s population.

Besides Aaditya, senior NCP leader and MP Sunil Tatkare’s daughter Aditi, also a first-time MLA, has been inducted into the council of ministers. Other generation-next politicians included in the cabinet are Amit Deshmukh, son of former CM Vilasrao Deshmukh; Varsha Gaikwad, former minister and daughter of senior Congress leader Eknath Gaikwad ; party’s working president Vishwajeet Kadam, son of late Congress leader Patangrao Kadam; Satej Patil, former minister and son of veteran Congress leader DY Patil ; Prajakt Tanpure, nephew of NCP state chief Jayant Patil; Shankar Gadakh, son of former NCP legislator Yashwant Gadakh among others.

On the whole, more than half of the cabinet, starting with Thackeray, is made up of ministers who come from political families.

“Whatever responsibility I am given, I will be happy to do justice to that department. There are various challenges ahead of us, from farmers’ issues to unemployment among the youth and we will try to resolve them. We have representation of youth in the government as well as the Assembly and I am looking forward to working with all of them,’’ said Aaditya Thackeray.

“This government now has full strength of 43 ministers. Once the portfolios are distributed by all three party chiefs, we can start working in earnest,’’ said Ajit Pawar. The CM also inducted three independents into his council, from the Sena quota, including farmers’ leader and four-term independent legislator Bacchu Kadu from Vidarbha, Shankar Gaddakh from Ahmednagar, Rajendra Yadravkar from Kolhapur. All these independents had given their support to the Sena.

From the Sena, Thackeray seems to have rewarded party loyalists like member of legislative council (MLC) Anil Parab, besides former ministers like Sanjay Rathod, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Shambhuraje Desai. The newcomers in the list include Sattar, Sandipan Bhumre (Marathwada). But, Sena dropped five of its former ministers from the preceding cabinet like Diwakar Raote, Ramdas Kadam, Ravindra Waikar, Tanaji Sawant and Deepak Kesarkar. Sena MP Sanjay Raut’s brother and MLA Sunil Raut also did not make the cut, leading to speculation that Sanjay Raut, seen as one of the main movers of this government, was upset. Raut denied this, but was conspicuous by his absence at the ceremony.

Raut said they had only done their job and did not expect anything in return. “We have limitations as it is a government of three parties,” Thackeray told mediapersons when he was asked about the same.

The NCP’s list of ministers also included loyalists and former ministers like Dilip Walse Patil, Rajesh Tope, Hasan Mushrif, Nawab Malik, Rajendra Shingane, Anil Deshmukh and Jitendra Awhad. The newcomers in the NCP list include Dattaray Bharne (MLA from Indapur and aide of Ajit Pawar) besides Aditi Takare.

The Congress list of ministers included Chavan; its two sitting working presidents, both from the young brigade, Vishwajit Kadam, Yashomati Thakur; former leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar and seven-term tribal MLA K C Padvi, among others. “The ministers from NCP and Congress are experienced and the cabinet has several heavyweights. With Pawar, who is seen as aggressive as DCM, the challenge before Thackeray will be to pick up the right bureaucrats in the CMO, who will help him drive his agenda, otherwise he might get overshadowed by his more experienced allies,’’ said Surendra Jondhale, political analyst. In terms of regional representation, the sugar belt of western Maharashtra, seen as the bastion of Congress-NCP, got 13 ministerial berths, followed by eight ministers from Vidarbha and seven ministers from Marathwada, four ministers from north Maharashtra and two from Konkan. Congress has picked four ministers from Vidarbha, a region which gave the party most seats (15) in the recent Assembly polls. The cabinet has four ministers from Mumbai and two from Thane city. The Sena leadership has maintained balance between rural and urban areas. At least seven Sena ministers sworn-in on Monday come from rural constituencies.

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