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Maharashtra gets a jumbo government

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilas Deshmukh today expanded his Council of Ministers by inducting 13 ministers of Cabinet rank and 20 ministers of state, taking the total number of ministers in his 10-day-old government to 61, the highest in the state's 39-year history.

The 33 new ministers were sworn in at a simple but impressive ceremony at the Raj Bhavan in south Bombay this evening. Governor P C Alexander administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers.

Earlier last week, 12 Cabinet and 14 ministers of state were sworn-in.

The Cabinet ministers sworn in today are Datta Meghe, Rohidas Patil, Vasant Chavan, Ranjit Deshmukh, Vilas Balkrishna Patil, Digvijay Khanvilkar, R R Patil, Prof Ramkrishna Patil, Dilip Valse-Patil, Satish Chaturvedi, Anand Devkate, Jayant Patil and Makhram Pawar.

The ministers of state are A T Pawar, Manik Thakre, Laxman Dhoble, Prakash Awade, Jaidutt Kshirsagar, Eknath Gaikwad, Anil Deshmukh, Balasaheb Thorat, Babasaheb Kupekar, Basavraj Patil, Ramraje Nimbalkar, Anees Ahmed, Subhash Thakre, Bhuischandra Sawarbandhe, Mohammed Arif Khan, Madhu Chavan, Gangadhar Gade, Ajit Ghorpade, Harshwardhan Patil and Rajesh Tope.

There are 18 new faces among the 33 sworn in today. Meghe and Gade are not members of either house of the state legislature. The Congress and NCP have six new members each in the Cabinet while the Bharatiya Bahujan Mahasangh has one. In the minister-of-state list, the Congress has nine, NCP eight, Republican Party of India (Athavale) one, and independents two.

UNI

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