Ajit Pawar takes charge as Maharashtra’s finance and planning minister

Mumbai: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday took charge as the state’s finance and planning minister, nearly two weeks after he took oath along with eight other Nationalist Congress Party leaders.

As per a statement prior to the official announcement of portfolios, he was briefed by two secretaries of the Finance and Planning Department..

His new office will be on the fifth floor of Mantralaya which will also serve as the office of the deputy chief minister.

The other NCP ministers with their allocated ministries are Hasan Mushrif (Medical Education), Chhagan Bhujbal (Food and Civil Supplies), Dharmrao Atram (Food and Drugs Administration), Sanjay Bansode (Sports), Aditi Tatkare (Woman and Child Development) and Anil Patil (Relief, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management), it said.

With the inclusion of 9 NCP ministers, there are 29 cabinet ministers in Maharashtra.

Shinde-led Shiv Sena MLAs apparently had objected to the allocation of Finance and Planning to Pawar.

With Tatkare’s induction, for the first time, a woman MLA has been given a cabinet berth in the Shinde government.

In the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, Tatkare was a minister of state with several portfolios.