Maha Cabinet Expansion: BJP’s Bawankule, Sena’s Uday Samant Take Oath As Ministers

The much-awaited cabinet expansion of the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra took place at the Raj Bhavan in Nagpur on Sunday.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Ashish Shelar, Chandrakant Patil, Girish Mahajan, Ganesh Naik, Mangal Pratap Lodha, Jaykumar Rawal, Pankaja Munde and Atul Sawe were among the ministers who took oath.

Shiv Sena’s Dada Bhuse, Shambhuraj Desai, Sanjay Rathod, Gulabrao Patil and Uday Samant were among ministers from deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde’s party.

Ajit Pawar’s NCP saw leaders Manikrao Kokate, Dattatray Vithoba Bharne, Hasan Mushrif, Aditi Sunil Tatkare and Dhananjay Munde taking oath at the ceremony.

The cabinet expansion is taking place 10 days after Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the chief minister for the third time on December 5.

Maharashtra assembly election results

The Mahayuti combine swept the November 20 Maharashtra elections, winning 230 out of 288 seats.

The results marked a significant milestone for the BJP, which emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats. The Shiv Sena and NCP won 57 and 41 seats, respectively.