No woman in 20-member cabinet as Maharashtra CM Shinde expands 41-day-old ministry

PTI

Mumbai, August 9

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday expanded his two-member ministry 41 days after taking oath as the CM by inducting 18 ministers, nine each from his rebel Shiv Sena group and the BJP.

The list doesn't include a woman, a move being panned by politicians and women's rights activists.

“Maharashtra was the first state in the country to give reservation to women. When 50 per cent of India's population is of women, they are not represented in the state cabinet,” NCP MP Supriya Sule said. “This shows the BJP's mindset,” she added.

Eighteen MLAs, including state BJP president Chandrakant Patil, were sworn in as cabinet ministers at Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai on Tuesday.

The strength of the Maharashtra ministry has now gone up to 20, less than half the maximum allowed strength of 43.

Governor BS Koshyari administered the oath of office to the ministers.

On June 30, Shinde was sworn in as chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy CM.

The new BJP ministers are Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.

From the Shinde group, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai were sworn in as ministers.

No minister of state was sworn in. There will be another ministry expansion later, an aide of Shinde said.

While BJP has inducted Lodha, who hails from Mumbai, the Shinde group hasn't included any legislator from the financial capital, where municipal corporation elections are slated later this year.

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