Days after quitting the Congress, former Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil on Sunday joined the cabinet of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Fadnavis expanded his cabinet adding 12 new ministers. Governor P Vidyasagar Rao administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at Raj Bhawan.
Many congratulations to all the newly inducted Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State in #MaharashtraCabinet !
I welcome you all in the team and wish you a successful tenure ! #CabinetExpansion pic.twitter.com/M7GyjnF85w— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) June 16, 2019
A total of 13 ministers were inducted in Sunday’s cabinet expansion out of which 10 are from BJP, 2 from Shiv Sena and 1 from RPI. Out of 10 BJP ministers, 6 were given the cabinet rank while remaining four were accorded the rank of minister of state. Besides Patil, Jaidatta Kshirsagar, Ashish Shelar, Dr Sanjay Kute, Dr Suresh Khade, Dr Anil Bonde, Dr Ashok Uike, Tanaji Sawant took oath as cabinet ministers in today’s expansion.
Maharashtra CM had met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday and held discussions about the ministers to be inducted in his cabinet. “I met Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray at his residence ‘Matoshri’ and discussed in detail cabinet expansion,” Fadnavis had tweeted on Friday.