Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar took oath as the Deputy of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday – more than a month after he had sided with the BJP and was sworn-in as the deputy of Devendra Fadnavis. Thackeray’s son Aaditya Thackeray is also set to take oath as part of the cabinet along with 34 other legislators.
In November, Ajit Pawar broke ranks from his party to ally with the BJP and took oath along with Fadnavis in an early-morning surprise ceremony. But he quit hours before a Supreme Court-ordered floor test, ending the BJP’s dramatic 80-hour bid to seize power.
Around 36 ministers – of both Cabinet and Minister of State ranks – take oath on Monday. Ten are from the Congress. Former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan is likely to get the public works department portfolio, the sources said.
From the Congress, Ashok Chavan, KC Padvi, Vijay Wadettiwar, Amit Deshmukh, Sunil Kadar, Yashomati Thakur, Varsha Gaikwad and Aslam Sheikh, Satej Patil and Vishwajeet Kada are a part of the expanded cabinet.
On November 28, Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut of Congress, Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai of the Shiv Sena and Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP took oath along with Uddhav Thackeray.
Maharashtra can have a maximum of 43 ministers. The size of council of ministers cannot exceed 15 per cent of the total number of MLAs in the state, which is 288.
Ajit Pawar has served as Deputy Chief Minister on two previous occasions, each time when a Congress-NCP alliance was in power.
