Maharashtra: 18 new ministers take oath in Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis cabinet

Maharashtra cabinet oath taking ceremony at Raj Bhavan. Pic/Ashish Raje

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde expanded his two-member ministry on Tuesday. The much awaited swearing-in ceremony was held at Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai at 11 am.

Altogether 18 ministers were sworn in, including nine leaders BJP and nine from Shinde faction. The expansion took the strength of the Maharashtra ministry to 20, less than half the maximum allowed strength of 43. According to reports, next round of expansion would take place later.

BJP
1) Chandrakant Patil

2) Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil

3) Sudhir Mungantiwar

4) Suresh Khade

5) Girish Mahajan

6) Ravindra Chauhan

7) Mangal Prabhat Lodha

8) Vijaykumar Gavit

9) Atul Save

From the Shinde group
1) Dada Bhuse

2) Shambhuraje Desai

3) Sandipan Bhumre

4) Uday Samant

5) Tanaji Sawant

6) Abdul Sattar

7) Deepak Kesarkar

8) Gulabrao Patil

9) Sanjay Rathod

The CM has made seven visits to New Delhi in the last one month, and with every visit there was talk that the ministry expansion was round the corner.