Maharashtra cabinet expansion upsets senior Cong, Sena leaders

The recent expansion of the Maharashtra cabinet, has reportedly left several senior leaders from the Congress and the Shiv Sena disgruntled, after they were not given ministerial berths.

The expansion on Monday (December 30) saw 34 MLAs from the three parties – the Shiv Sena (15), the Congress (12) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) (16) – being inducted to the state cabinet. While NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of the state, Aaditya Thackeray, the 29-year-old son of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was given a ministerial position.

According to an NDTV report, six Congress MLAs, Prithviraj Chavan, Naseem Khan, Praniti Shinde, Sangram Thopte, Amin Patel and Rohidas Patil, reportedly met senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday evening to put forth their concerns.

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Reports also suggest that a few senior Sena leaders are unhappy over not being given ministerial positions. The Sena did not include its leaders like Ramdas Kadam, Diwakar Raote, Ravindra Waikar, Deepak Kesarkar and Tanaji Sawant in the new council of ministers during the cabinet expansion.

Senior Sena leader and editor of its mouthpiece Saamana Sanjay Raut skipped the much-awaited expansion ceremony. His absence was attributed to his brother Sunil Raut, a Sena MLA, not getting a ministerial berth.

Breaking his silence over the matter, Raut on Tuesday (December 31) said the Sena had a “limited choice” in the three-party alliance government. Talking to PTI, he said that the Sena had to accommodate allies who supported the Thackeray-led party after the state Assembly poll results were announced on October 24.

“We had to give a chance to new faces as well,” he said.

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Asked why he stayed away from the swearing-in ceremony, Raut said, “I was at the Saamana office doing my job.”

The opposition BJP also skipped the swearing-in ceremony of Thackeray’s council of ministers.

Monday’s expansion, which raised the strength of the state ministry to 43, came over a month after the Thackeray- led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government came to power. The Shiv Sena last month joined hands with the Congress and NCP, its traditional adversaries, after its alliance with the BJP collapsed over the issue of sharing the chief ministerial post. On November 28, Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut of Congress, Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai of the Sena and Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP had taken oath along with Thackeray. In the 288-member House, the Sena has 56 MLAs, NCP 54 and Congress 44. The opposition BJP has 105 MLAs.

(With inputs from agencies)