After a marathon meeting till Saturday night Devendra Fadnavis eventually released the list of portfolio allocation just before boarding the flight to Russia
A marathon meeting on Saturday which ended just two hours before CM Devendra Fadnavis' flight for Russia resulted in a big reshuffle with several heavyweight ministers being reassigned their portfolios. The wait of 10 new entrants into the council of ministers also ended late night.
As expected, Chandrakant Patil will now handle the high profile Revenue (earlier held by Eknath Khadse) and PWD departments. His other ministries—Textile, cooperative and marketing—have been given to the new entrant Subhash Deshmukh.
Pandurang Fundkar who was inducted on Friday has been given Agriculture-another Khadse’s portfolio.
The shuffle has come as a big jolt for senior ministers like Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and Prakash Mehta. Vinod Tawde has been stripped off from prestigious Medical education department but he retains school, higher and technical education. He has also been given minorities and waqf, earlier handled by Khadse.
Pankaja Munde lost the water conservation department though she will continue to handle rural development, women and child development. The rejig comes as a setback for Munde as Jalyukta Shivar scheme which received praise from the World Bank has been withdrawn from her and given to Ram Shinde.
Prakash Mehta too has been offloaded from the labour ministry which is now given to Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar. Mehta retains the housing department though.
Girish Mahajan will be new medical education minister. He will continue to hold water resources.
While the CM has retained his departments (General administration, Urban Development, Law and Judiciary, Ports and Information & public relations) other senior cabinet ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Bapat, Dr Deepak Sawant, Rajkumar Badole, Vishnu Sawara, Diwakar Raote, Subhash Desai, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Ramdas Kadam, Eknath Shinde were left untouched.
Portfolios of several MoS have also been shuffled. Shiv Sena leader Deepak Kesarkar has got Home (rural) in addition to his previous portfolios-finance and planning. Dr Ranjit Patil will continue to hold all previous ministries and Home (urban).
Sena has been lobbying for the Home (cabinet) since the saffron alliance came to power. The party which has openly waged a word of war against its ruling partner, also sought more cabinet berths. To clam them down, Fadnavis has given one extra department to Subhash Desai and Diwakar Raote.
Such was the pressure and lobbying for some plum portfolios that Fadnavis had decided to sit in Nagpur to finalise the allocation of departments. However, due to bad weather on Saturday morning, his plane couldn't land and was diverted to Mumbai. Even as expansion and oath ceremony was held the portfolio allocation was announced late on Saturday to avoid unrest ahead of Fadnavis’ trip to Russia.
The exercise was necessitated due to induction of 10 new ministers and one being elevated from MoS to cabinet rank on Friday and exit of erstwhile revenue minister Eknath Khadse who handled 10 departments. However, Fadnavis used this as an opportunity to rationalise the workload among his colleagues who had been handling several departments till now.
Cabinet ministers after reshuffle and expansion (23)
1) Devendra Fadnavis: General administration, Urban Development, Law and Judiciary, Ports and Information & public relations
2) Chandrakant Patil: Revenue and PWD
3) Sudhir Mungantiwar: Finance and Planning, Forest
4) Vinod Tawde, School, Higher, technical, minorities and waqf, marathi language, culture
5) Prakash Mehta: Housing
6) Pankaja Munde: Rural dev, women and child dev
7) Vishnu Sawara: Tribal
8) Girish Bapat: Food and civil supply, Food and drugs admin, parliamnetary affairs
9) Girish Mahajan: water resources, medical education and command area dev
10) Diwakar Raote: Transport, Saltpan land dev
11) Subhash Desai: Industries and mining
12) Pandurang Fundkar: Agriculture, Horticulture
13) Ramdas Kadam: environment
14) Eknath Shinde: PWD (projects)
15) Chandrashekhar Bawankule: Energy, state excise
16) Babanrao Lonikar: Water supply and sanitation
17) Deepak Swant: Public health
18) Rajkumar Badole: Social justice and special assistance
Cabinet new entrants
19) Ram Shinde: Water conservation and protocol
20) Jaykumar rawal: Employment and Tourism
21) Subhash Deshmukh: Textiles, marketing and cooperatives
22)Mahadeo Jankar: Animal husbandry, milk and fisheries
23)Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar: Labour, Skill Development
MoS new entrants:
1) Dilip Kamble: Social justice & special assistance, Relief and rehab, earthquake rehab, minorities & waqf
2) Vidya Thakur: Women and child dev
3) Vijay Deshmukh: Public health, transport, state excise and labour
4) Sanjay Rathod: Revenue
5) Dada Bhuse: Rural Dev
6) Vijay Shivtare: water resources, water conservation, parliamentary affairs
7) Deepak Kesarkar: Home (Rural), finance and planning
8) Raje Amberish Rao: Tribal dev and forests
9) Ravindra Waikar: Housing and higher & technical
10) Dr Ranjit Patil: Home (Urban), law and judiciary, parliamentary affairs, skill dev and entrepreneurship, ex-servicemen welfare
11) Pravin Potel Patil: Industries & mining, environment, PWD
12) Gulabrao Patil: Cooperatives
13) Madan Yerawar: Energy, tourism, PWD, general admin
14) Sadabhau Khot: Agriculture, Marketing
15) Ravindra Chavan: Ports, medical education, IT, food and civil supply, consumer affairs
16) Arjun Khotkar: Textiles, animal husbandry, fisheries and milk
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