Maharashtra Cabinet Ministers List 2019: Ajit Pawar sworn in as Dy CM; 25 Cabinet ranks, 10 MoS berths allotted

Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, along with 25 cabinet ministers and 10 Ministers of State on Monday in the presence of Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari.

Of the 25 cabinet berths, eight have been allotted to the Congress, nine to the NCP, seven to the Shiv Sena and one to Independent MLA Shankarrao Gadakh. Ashok Chavan, Dilip Walse Patil, Dhanajay Munde, Nawab Malik, Amit Deshmukh, Balasaheb Patil and Aaditya Thackeray are among those sworn in as Cabinet ministers.

Meanwhile, ten MLAs were sworn in as Ministers of State — four from NCP, three from Shiv Sena, two from Congress and one Independent legislator Bachchu Kadu.

The oath-taking ceremony and expansion of Shiv Sena president and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s cabinet comes over a month after the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress decided to join hands to form a coalition government in Maharashtra, bringing to an end an imbroglio that started with the declaration of poll results on 24 October.

Here is a list of the ministers sworn in today:

According to the power-sharing formula agreed on by the three parties, the Shiv Sena would have 16 ministers (apart from chief minister), NCP 14 and the Congress 12.

Uddhav was sworn in as chief minister on 28 November, along with Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut of the Congress, Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai of the Shiv Sena and Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal of the NCP. The Congress has also got the Speaker's post, held by Sakoli MLA Nana Patole, who was elected unanimously on 1 December.

The BJP and Sena, which fought the Assembly polls as allies, had secured a majority by winning 105 and 56 seats respectively in the 288-member Assembly. However, Sena broke the three-decade-long alliance with the BJP after the latter rejected the former’s demand to share the chief minister's post.

Ajit Pawar had attempted a coup within the NCP by joining hands with the BJP and taking oath as the deputy of Devendra Fadnavis last month, but the government had only lasted 80 hours. He quit shortly before a Maharashtra Assembly floor test ordered by the Supreme Court.

Maharashtra can have a maximum of 43 ministers. The size of council of ministers cannot exceed 15 percent of the total number of MLAs in the state, which is 288.