Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray, the first-time lawmaker from Worli, is likely to be inducted as a minister in the cabinet expansion to be carried out by his father and party boss Uddhav Thackeray a few hours later on Monday, a senior Sena leader said on Monday. Over 30 legislators from the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress party are also set to take oath at the Vidhan Bhavan complex at the oath event.
Aaditya, 29, the first member of the Thackeray family to contest an election, was elected from Mumbai’s Worli seat in October’s state elections. After Uddhav Thackeray took over the reins of Maharashtra in a dramatic turn of events, there had been reports that the Shiv Sena chief had been reluctant to induct his son into the cabinet and wanted him to gain some legislative experience first. It is not clear why he may have changed his mind.
The cabinet expansion – Uddhav Thackeray had taken over with a small six-member team comprising two ministers from each of the three alliance partners – will also see the induction of the NCP’s Ajit Pawar as deputy chief minister. In the power sharing pact that had been sealed when Thackeray had taken over as chief minister last month, the deputy chief minister’s assignment had gone to the NCP.
Apart from Pawar, his party colleagues from NCP, Dilip Walse Patil, Dhananjay Munde and Nawab Malik are expected to be inducted into Thackeray’s council of ministers. Apart from that, Hassan Mushrif, Datta Barne, Rajesh Tope, Anil Deshmukh, Jitendra Awhad, and Aditi Tatkare could be inducted.
The Maharashtra Congress has released a list of eight cabinet ministers and two ministers of state (MoS). Congress will induct senior leaders Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadittiwar and KC Padvi, Amit Deshmukh, Sunil Kedar, Yashomati Thakur, Varsha Gaikwad and Aslam Shaikh as cabinet ministers. Satej Patil and Vishwajeet Kadam will be made MoS. However, the Congress has left out another former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
The Shiv Sena is expected to leave out some of its senior party leaders including Diwakar Raote and Ramdas Kadam. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, according to party insiders, has decided to go with Anil Parab, Uday Samant, Abdul Sattar, Shambhuraje Desai, Sandipan Bhumre, along with retaining ministers Dada Bhuse Gulabrao Patil and Sanjay Rathod. Bacchu Kade, Rajendra Patil Yadravkar and Shankar Gadhakh, the three Independents, who have supported the Sena, are also expected to take oath.
Many hopefuls within the Sena found their names missing including Sunil Raut, brother of Sena MP Sanjay Raut, Ashish Jaiswal, Sanjay Shirsat, Ravindra Waikar, Tanaji Sawant.
