Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expanded his 10-day old cabinet on Sunday with 39 MLAs taking oath as ministers. Among the newly inducted ministers 19 are from the BJP, 11 from Shiv Sena and seven from the Nationalist Congress Party.
Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan administered the oath of office at a ceremony held at Raj Bhawan in Nagpur in the evening. The swearing-in came just a day ahead of the winter session of the legislature.
The legislators who were sworn in as ministers today included BJP state president Chandrashekhar Bawankule, party leaders Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Chandrakant Patil, Girish Mahajan, Ganesh Naik; NCP's Hasan Mushrif and Dhananjay Munde; Shiv Sena's Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse and Sanjay Rathod.
Fadnavis, along with his deputies—Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar—attended the ceremony, which marks a rare occasion as the last such event in Nagpur was held in 1991.
Fadnavis, Pawar and Shinde had taken oath on December 5, more than two weeks after the assembly elections results were announced. With the swearing-in of 39 new ministers, Maharashtra cabinet is now a mix of new an old faces as well as heavy weights and debutantes.
Earlier in the day, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said that some of those who took oath will have a tenure of two-and-a-half-years, hinting that there are more aspirants for ministerial berths.
The ruling Mahayuti stormed back to power, winning 230 of the 288 seats, with BJP alone pocketing 132 seats. The Shiv Sena and the NCP bagged 58 and 41 seats, respectively.