Ajit Pawar has been given the job of Maharashtra’s finance minister, sources informed News18 on Thursday. The rumors started to circulate when the deputy chief minister traveled to Delhi on Wednesday to meet with Union home minister Amit Shah and ask for his assistance in resolving the problem of portfolio allocation and cabinet enlargement.
Leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Praful Patel and Hasan Mushrif, arrived at the capital city alongside Pawar. Sources claim that Pawar, who was just appointed deputy chief minister, was given the finance responsibility and has not asked for any other important portfolios, such as the home or urban development department (UDD).
The transfer of other ministries among the Sena group headed by CM Eknath Shinde is the main problem. The Shinde group believed that the NCP would get the BJP’s ministries. That’s not the case, however.
According to insiders, the Shinde faction has been dissatisfied by the reshuffle, which is also taking a look at the portfolios from the Shinde group. insiders also said that 22 of his MLAs are uneasy.
Pawar served as finance minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) administration under CM Uddhav Thackeray. When Shinde and his 40 MLAs left the Thackeray-led Sena in 2022, one of the reasons given was that Pawar would not readily provide them with funding, whereas NCP MLAs always received priority.
There is a cap of 43 cabinet ministers for Maharashtra. Currently, 29 of these seats have been filled, and the number of people vying for ministerial positions has increased. “Choosing the cabinet ministers will be a very tough assignment for CM Shinde. There is a chance that he will take into account factors like caste when choosing MLAs for cabinet positions, similar to how Ajit Pawar tried to give representation to OBC, SC-ST, and minorities when choosing MLAs who had taken an oath as cabinet ministers with him.