Around 13 new cabinet mins likely to be sworn in on Wed

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government under CM Eknath Shinde will witness the swearing in of fewer than 15 new cabinet ministers, most likely on August 3, in a plan that is being light humouredly termed as the Teen-Tera gambit. A source said, “Thirteen new cabinet members are to be sworn in immediately and likely to include seven BJP ministers and six ministers from the Eknath Shinde faction.”

BJP high command’s instruction to blood new and young faces will be reflected in the cabinet with stalwarts like Chand r a s h e k h a r Bawankule (former Energy Minister) and Sudhir Mungantiwar (former Finance Minister) unlikely to find a place in the new council of ministers. Another senior leader, Girish Mahajan, who served a minister in the Fadnavis helmed Maharashtra government between 2014 and 2019 paid a visit to New Delhi in a last-ditch effort to seek inclusion into the proposed Maharashtra cabinet of ministers as also to clear some misgivings regarding his flamboyant political image, it is reliably learnt.

BJP’s state president Chandrakant Dada Patil, who served as Revenue Minister under the Fadnavis government is expected to be the exception to the ‘new faces’ diktat by the high command, considering the clean image he maintained during his previous stint in the council of ministers. Former BJP minister Ashish Shelar, who was accommodated by then BJP CM Devendra Fadnavis in the previous BJP-led government, barely three months before the 2019 assembly polls, may also be re-inducted.