Last week, nine Nationalist Congress Party ministers had taken oath along with Chavan and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. Of the 19 cabinet ministers sworn in on Friday, 14 are from the Congress and five from the NCP. Of these, only Varsha Gaikwad and Padmakar Valvi, who were junior ministers in the earlier Ashok Chavan-led government, were promoted to cabinet rank. Deputy Speaker Madhukar Chavan and Sanjay Deotale of the Congress are the new faces.
Ten ministers of state were sworn in, of which five were from the Congress including four newcomers -- Satej Patil, Rajendra Mulak, Rajendra Gavit and Dattatreya Sawant. The rest were from the NCP.
The CM said the first meeting of the council of ministers will be held on Saturday while the portfolis will be announced later in the day. He however, did not specify as when he will fill the three vacancies belonging to the Congress.
The strength of the ministry has to be 43, with the Congress-NCP sharing the 23:20 formula.
The Congress's cabinet ministers are Narayan Rane, Patangrao Kadam, Shivajirao Moghe, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Harshwardhan Patil, Balasaheb Thorat, Rajendra Darda, Nasim Khan, Suresh Shetty, Nitin Raut, Madhukar Chavan, Padmakar Valvi, Varsha Gaikwad and Sanjay Deotale.
The NCP list includes Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, Anil Deshmukh, Rajesh Tope, Babanrao Pachpute and Hassan Mushrif.
The list of ministers of state who took oath on Friday includes Satej Patil, D P Sawant, Rajendra Mulak, Ranjeet Kamble and Rajendra Gavit from the Congress; and Fouziya Khan, Prakash Solanke, Sachin Ahir, Bhaskar Yadav and Gulabrao Devkar from the NCP.
