Days prior to the monsoon session of the assembly, allocation of portfolios in Maharashtra’s cabinet has been finalised with BJP securing key ministries, including home and finance for its leader Devendra Fadnavis. CM Eknath Shinde has kept a large number of berths for himself, apparently to distribute some to supporters in the Shiv Sena in the next phase of cabinet expansion. This includes urban development, public enterprises, social justice, environment, general administration, transport and minority affairs.
Likewise, Fadnavis has been given with home, finance, planning, law and judiciary, water resources, housing, energy, some of which may be divested to future BJP recruits in the cabinet. Agriculture has gone to Abdul Sattar, a rebel Sena MLA facing allegations that his daughters were beneficiaries of a teacher entrance test scam. Industry is with Uday Samant, again a well-known Sena face in the Shinde camp’s campaign against the Uddhav Thackeray faction. Yet, in the current scheme, most high-profile ministries, including revenue (Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil), higher education (Chandrakant Patil), rural development (Girish Mahajan) has gone to BJP.
According to a senior BJP cabinet member, Fadnavis had a big say in allocations to both parties. The new-look cabinet underscores the BJP leadership’s decision to give the deputy CM a top role in the administration and dulled the opposition’s attack on Shinde. And though there is talk of discontentment over portfolios within BJP and Sena, Fadnavis deprived of it.
