Mumbai: The 35-day-old Devendra Fadnavis-led ministry in Maharashtra was expanded today with Shiv Sena finally joining the BJP led government.
A total of 15 new ministers, belonging to both Shiv Sena and BJP, joined the Fadnavis government today.
10 members of Shiv Sena were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao. out of 10 ministers, 5 are of cabinet rank while rest of them have been given Minister of State rank.
5 members of BJP also joined the Fadnavis government today.
Cabinet ministers who took the oath were Girish Bapat (BJP), Girish Mahajan (BJP), Diwakar Raote (Shiv Sena), Subhash Desai (SS), Ramdas Kadam (SS), Eknath Shinde (SS), Chandrashekhar Bawankule (BJP), Babanrao Lonikar (BJP), Dr Deepak Sawant (SS) and Rajkumar Badole (BJP).
Ministers of state sworn in were Ram Shinde (BJP), Vijay Deshmukh (BJP), Sanjay Rathod (Shiv Sena), Dada Bhuse (SS), Vijay Shivtare (SS), Deepak Kesarkar (SS), Raje Amrish Atram (BJP), Ravindra Waikar (SS), Dr Ranjit Patil (BJP) and Pravin Pote (BJP).
Two more Sena ministers are expected to take oath during the next cabinet expansion, possibly after the winter session of the state legislature.
With this, the alliance will command a strength of 184 in the 287-member House (one BJP legislator died soon after the poll results were announced in October). The BJP has a strength of 121 legislators and the Shiv Sena 63.
The two parties - allies for 25 years - split on September 25 after a bitter spat and fought the assembly elections separately.
This is the first instance in Maharashtra where an opposition party has joined the ruling party in an alliance government.
When Fadnavis was sworn in as the Chief Minister on October 31, nine other ministers, all from BJP, took oath. No Sena minister was sworn in then, as talks between the two parties, which had contested the Assembly polls separately, were inconclusive.
