Maharashtra: Eknath Shinde cabinet expansion next week, may induct 8 BJP, 5 own group MLAs

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde will likely expand his cabinet next week by inducting 13 ministers - eight from the BJP and five from his breakaway group of the Shiv Sena.

After the first phase of swearing-in of ministers between Tuesday and Thursday, there will likely be another round of expansion, possibly after the monsoon session of the assembly.

Both Shinde and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, addressing reporters in Delhi on Saturday, said the cabinet expansion would be done before the Presidential polls on July 18. Shinde said the issue would be discussed with the BJP after he returned from Pandharpur, where he is going for performing the Ashadi Ekadashi Puja on Sunday.

The cabinet currently comprises only Shinde and Fadnavis.

On Friday night, the two leaders met union home minister Amit Shah, with the over four-hour meeting in Delhi lasting till 2 am on Saturday. On Saturday morning, they met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

People in the know said the two Maharashtra leaders discussed cabinet expansion with Shah, though addressing the press conference later in the national capital, both Shinde and Fadnavis said nothing much should be read into the meetings. "We didn't discuss any portfolio sharing with Shah, it was just a courtesy meeting," said Shinde.

According to the people ET spoke to, Shinde and Fadnavis would give the final touches to the expansion plan after the chief minister returned from the pilgrimage town in Sholapur.

Shinde also said nothing much should be read into a meeting that Fadnavis and he had with solicitor general Tushar Mehta.

Mehta is appearing on behalf of Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in a case in the Supreme Court over the disqualification notices issued to 16 Shiv Sena MLAs including Shinde by the Uddhav Thackeray camp of the Shiv Sena. The court is scheduled to hear the case on Tuesday.

"We didn't meet him in connection with the July 12 issue; we discussed with him the issue of the OBC reservation (for the local body polls). We requested him to represent us in the case so that the OBC reservation could be restored for the local body polls," Shinde said.

Fadnavis and Shinde rejected the Thackeray camp's argument that the rebel Sena MLAs who joined with BJP to form the government were not the real Shiv Sena. "We have had an alliance with Balasaheb Thackeray's party that is ideologically rooted to Hindutva," said Fadnavis.

Shinde ridiculed Thackeray's challenge to him and the BJP to go for a midterm poll. "Elections happen as per the Constitution and, in a democracy, majority matters. Why do we need to go have a midterm when we have won with 164 MLAs in a trust vote while they have got only 99 votes," said Shinde. The chief minister said his government was stable and would last for the remaining two-and-a-half years of the term before the polls, and retain power after that as well.

He also rubbished claims by the Thackeray camp that Sena legislators had rebelled or were wooed by money to join the BJP. "This is not a rebellion but a revolution, the MLAs have come on their own, they are not going to sell themselves for money. Balasaheb Thackeray, the Shiv Sena supremo, himself had said that he would shut the party if it ever joined hands with the Congress and NCP," said Shinde.