Mumbai: BJP and Shinde camp have reached a consensus on the cabinet expansion whereby BJP will play a big brother role by getting 28 ministerial berths while 15 to Shinde camp. Of the 28 BJP ministers, 20 are expected to be cabinet ministers including deputy chief minister and 8 ministers of state. On the other hand, of the 15 ministerial berths of Shinde camp, there will be 11 cabinet ministers including CM and four ministers of state.
The formula has been approved by the BJP’s central leadership. As a formality, Shinde and Fadnavis will meet on Thursday and the cabinet expansion will take place next week. BJP will get a lion’s share considering its 106 legislators and 9 legislators and smaller parties with it. As reported by Free Press Journal, the cabinet expansion is expected to take place next week.
Shinde is expected to hold general administration, urban development and MSRDC. At the same time, he will personally monitor a slew of infrastructure projects of over Rs 6 lakh crore including Mumbai Coastal Road, Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, Metro rail network of over 370 km, expansion of Mumbai Pune expressway, Mumbai Nagpur Samruddhi Marg, Mumbai Konkan coastal road, Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet train.
Fadnavis will hold politically important home and finance & planning departments and thereby pay attention to the modernisation of the police force and make it a professional one by eliminating its nexus with politicians and criminals. Fadnavis will also focus on achieving a trillion dollar economy.
Besides, BJP will hold revenue, public works, housing, water resources, energy, higher and technical education, water supply and sanitation, animal husbandry and dairy development, tourism, food and civil supply, skill development, OBC development. BJP veterans including Chandrakant Patil, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Girish Mahajan, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Pravin Darekar, Ashish Shekar, Kisan Kathore, Sanjay Kute, Madhuri Misal, Paribas Phuke are front runners for the ministerial berths.
On the other hand, Shinde camp is likely to get industry, mining, transport, environment, employment guarantee, horticulture, school education, soil and water conservation. Shinde camp members including Gulabrao Patil, Uday Samant, Dadaji Bhuse, Shambhuraj Desai, Abdul Sattar, Bacchu Kadu (independent), Rajendra Patil Yedravkar (all former ministers in MVA government), Anil Babar, Sanjay Shirsat, Bharat Gogawale are tipped to be the ministers.
State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil to step down
State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil will step down as he will become cabinet minister in the Shinde-Fadnavis government. There are two contenders including Ashish Shelar who is Maratha and Ram Shinde who is from the Dhangar community for the post of state unit chief.
Shelar, who was School Education Minister in the Fadnavis led government for a short period, is reluctant as he is keen to join the cabinet. Shinde, who was recently elected to the state council, can be considered as the new government that wants to take credit for the restoration of 27% OBC reservation in local bodies.
