Twenty nine ministers included in Prithviraj’s team
Mumbai: On Friday, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan expanded his Cabinet by inducting 29 more ministers, including 19 of Cabinet rank, increasing the ministry’s strength to 40.
Governor K Sankaranarayanan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers at the Raj Bhavan.
Deputy Speaker of state Legislative Assembly Madhukar Chavan and Sanjay Deotale (Congress) are the new faces in the ministry. From the total 19 Cabinet ministers sworn in today, 14 are from Congress and five from NCP. Of these, only Varsha Gaikwad and Padmakar Valvi, who were junior ministers in the earlier Ashok Chavan-led government, were promoted to the Cabinet rank.
Ten Ministers of State (MOS) were sworn in today of which five were from Congress including four newcomers – Satej Patil, Rajendra Mulak, Rajendra Gavit and Dattatreya Sawant. The rest were from the NCP.
The Chief Minister said the first meeting of the Council of Ministers will be held tomorrow while the portfolios will be announced later in the day.
The Congress list of Cabinet Ministers include Narayan Rane, Patangrao Kadam, Shivajirao Moghe, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Harshwardhan Patil, Balasaheb Thorat, Rajendra Darda, Nasim Khan, Suresh Shetty, Nitin Raut, Madhukar Chavan, Padmakar Valvi, Varsha Gaikwad and Sanjay Deotale.
The NCP list has Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, Anil Deshmukh, Rajesh Tope, Babanrao Pachpute and Hassan Mushrif.
The list of Ministers of State who took oath today include Satej Patil, D P Sawant, Rajendra Mulak, Ranjeet Kamble and Rajendra Gavit from Congress; and Fouziya Khan, Prakash Solanke, Sachin Ahir, Bhaskar Yadav and Gulabrao Devkar from NCP.
Including Deputy CM Ajit Pawar nine NCP ministers had taken oath along with Chief Minister Chavan last week.
