Maharashtra Cabinet Expansion: Finance Finalised for Dy CM Ajit Pawar, Say Sources – News18

Maharashtra finance ministry has been finalised for Ajit Pawar, sources told News18 on Thursday. The reports emerged after the deputy chief minister reached Delhi on Wednesday to meet Union home minister Amit Shah and seek his intervention to solve the issue of portfolio distribution and cabinet expansion.

Along with Pawar, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Praful Patel and Hasan Mushrif also reached the national capital. According to sources, Pawar, who was recently inducted as the deputy CM, was promised the finance portfolio, and he hasn’t sought any other key portfolio such as home or urban development department (UDD).

The key issue is the redistribution of other portfolios among the CM Eknath Shinde-led Sena faction. The Shinde group was under the impression that the BJP’s portfolios will be given to NCP. But that isn’t the case.

The portfolios from the Shinde group, too, are being looked at for the reshuffle, which has upset the Shinde faction, said sources, adding that 22 MLAs of his MLAs are restless.

Pawar was the finance minister in the CM Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. In 2022, when Shinde and his 40 MLAs parted ways with the Thackeray-led Sena, one of the reasons cited was Pawar did not give them funds easily, while NCP MLAs always got the first preference.

Maharashtra can have a maximum of 43 cabinet ministers. As of now, 29 of these positions have been filled and the list of ministerial aspirants has grown lengthier. “It would be a very difficult task for CM Shinde to choose the cabinet ministers. There is a chance that he may consider factors like caste while picking MLAs for cabinet berths, the way Ajit Pawar has tried to give representation to OBC, SC-ST, and minorities while selecting MLAs who had taken oath as cabinet ministers with him,” said a senior leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party.