The Hindu : Shinde swears in a 'please-all' Ministry

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Sunday, Jan 26, 2003

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National

Shinde swears in a 'please-all' Ministry

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Jan. 25. The new Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, today inducted the State's largest-ever Ministry of 69, including 23 Cabinet Ministers and 30 Ministers of State, from his own Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in addition to the 15 sworn in a week ago.

The Governor, Mohammed Fazal, administered the oath of office and secrecy to all the Ministers at a simple ceremony at the Raj Bhavan today.

Curiously, the Cabinet expansion took place even as the new Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief, Ranjit Deshmukh, hinted at downsizing his executive to make it more accountable. Mr. Shinde's explanation is that in a coalition arrangement, Ministries tend to be large to accommodate all interests.

The NCP, which preferred a smaller team but wanted to match the Congress in numbers, chose not to drop any of its old Ministers. Instead, it added some new faces, including Suresh Jain, to the Cabinet and elevated Jaydutt Kshirsagar. Mr. Jain, who quit the Shiv Sena after a row and contested the polls on an NCP ticket, has found his reward.

Questions are being raised about the viability of such a large team — the outgoing team had just 58, but that too was big enough to invite criticism — when the State was in the midst of a financial crisis. There are just not enough official bungalows even to provide them accommodation nor office space for them in Mantralaya, seat of the Government located in south Mumbai.

Obviously, neither the Congress nor the NCP wants to give dissidence a chance by dropping Ministers on a large scale, even though their performance has been an issue. As sources close to Mr. Shinde said, "He had no choice but to take in as many Ministers as he could to make it a please-all team." This is the team that would be expected to take the Government towards re-election in September-October next year, and given the size of the Ministry now, there is hardly any scope for addition.

Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, former Congress Chief Minister, has been inducted as a Cabinet Minister. He is the second ex-Chief Minister to be sworn into a junior post. The first was S.B. Chavan, who was inducted by Sharad Pawar in his Cabinet.

Mr. Nilangekar, who had to quit office in the past due to a marks scandal involving a family member, is a rival of Vilasrao Deshmukh in their native Latur.

In a move to placate Mr. Deshmukh, his brother, Dilip Deshmukh, was made a Minister of State.

The MPCC chief, Govindrao Adik, who was brought in as Cabinet Minister, faxed his resignation to the AICC, after which Ranjit Deshmukh was asked to head the party.

The Maratha leader, Rohidas Patil, who wanted to be Chief Minister and had camped in New Delhi to curry favour with the AICC bosses, was dropped.

Mr. Patil, sources said, had committed the mistake of openly canvassing for his anointment. Another Congress MLA, Patangrao Kadam, has however been retained.

Nine others from smaller parties and Independents were brought in as Ministers of State.

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