NEW DELHI: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis retained the home ministry along with law and judiciary in the newly sworn-in Maharashtra government, while deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde was entrusted with urban development, housing, and public works.
Meanwhile, deputy chief minister and NCP ally Ajit Pawar has been allocated the finance, planning and excise department.
CM Fadnavis will also hold energy (excluding renewable energy), general administration, and information & publicity portfolios in the Cabinet.
The portfolio announcement late on Saturday night marked the culmination of weeks of political negotiations within the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance.
Party-wise portfolios in the Cabinet are as follows:
Portfolios allocated to BJP ministers are: Chandrashekhar Bawankule (revenue), Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil (water resources- krishna and godavari valley development corporation), Chandrakant Patil (higher and technical education, parliamentary affairs), Girish Mahajan (water resources- Vidarbha , Tapi, Konkan development corporation and disaster management).
Ganesh Naik (forests), Mangal Prabhat Lodha (skill development, employment, entrepreneurship and innovation); Jaykumar Raval (marketing and protocol), Pankaja Munde (environment and climate change, animal husbandry); Atul Save (OBC welfare, dairy development and renewable energy).
Shiv Sena ministers’ portfolios: Gulabrao Patil (water supply and sanitation), Dadaji Bhuse (school education), Sanjay Rathod (soil and water conservation), Uday Samant (industries and Marathi language), Shambhuraj Desai (tourism, mining, ex-servicemen welfare), Sanjay Shirsat (social justice), Pratap Sarnaik (transport), Bharat Gogawale (employment guarantee, horticulture, salt pan lands development); Prakash Abitkar (public health and family welfare).
NCP ministers’ portfolios: Hasan Mushrif (medical education), Dhananjay Munde (food and civil supplies and consumer protection), Dattatrey Bharne (sports ,youth welfare and minority development) and Aukaf, Aditi Tatkare (women and child development) , Manikrao Kokate (agriculture). Narhari Zirwal has been given food and drug administration, special assistance. Makrand Patil has been given relief and rehabilitation, while Babasaheb Patil was allocated cooperation.
BJP had earlier rejected Shiv Sena’s demands for the home ministry to be handed to Shinde.
The reshuffle follows a cabinet expansion on December 15, where 39 ministers—19 from BJP, 11 from Shiv Sena, and 9 from NCP—were inducted ahead of the winter session starting December 16.
Fadnavis and his deputies, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, were sworn in on December 5, and the delay in finalizing the portfolios had sparked speculation about internal disagreements.
The Mahayuti coalition, comprising BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP, had secured a decisive victory in the November 20 assembly elections by winning 230 of 288 seats.
