Narayan Rane, two women in expanded Maharashtra cabinet

MUMBAI - The Maharashtra council of ministers was expanded here Friday with 29 more ministers being sworn in, including Congress party strongmen Narayan Rane and Patangrao Kadam, and two women ministers.

Governor K. Sankaranarayanan administered oath of office to the new ministers - 19 from the Congress and 10 from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) - at a glittering ceremony in Raj Bhavan.

Besides Rane and Kadam, the others include Shivajirao Moghe, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Harshavardhan Patil, Vijay Thorat, Anil Deshmukh, Ramraje Naik-Mimbalkar, Rajendra Darda, Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan, Suresh Shetty, Nitin Raut, Madhukar Chavan, Padmakar Davli, Varsha Gaikwad, Sanjay Devtale, Ranjit Kamble, Rajendra Mulak, Rajendra Gavit, D.P. Sawant, Hassan Mushrif, Rajesh Tope, Babbanrao Pachpute, Bhaskar Jadhav, Prakash Solanke, Sachin Aher, Fauziya Khan, Gulabrao Devkar, Satej Patil.

The new council of ministers, like the previous Ashok Chavan government, includes only two women ministers.

They are the Congress’ Varsha Gaekwad, who was a minister of state and has now been promoted to cabinet rank, and the NCP’s Fauziya Khan, who had created history in 2009 by becoming the first Muslim woman minister in the state and continues to be a minister of state.

This was the second round of swearing-in after Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar took oath a week ago. Along with them, nine other NCP ministers, including heavyweights like Chhagan Bhujbal and R.R. Patil, were sworn in.

The portfolios of the new ministers are expected to be announced shortly.