Joshi To Induct Five More Ministers Today

In an apparent move to strengthen the minority Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance government on the eve of the budget session of the Maharashtra legislature, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi yesterday announced that he will expand his ministry today by inducting five more members.

The list of probables included an independent MLA and a Congress MLA who has joined the Sena.

Talking to reporters here after the customary eve-of-the-session tea meeting with opposition leaders, Joshi said that independent MLA Babasaheb Dhabekar was being reinducted into the ministry, while Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who has left the Congress to join the Sena, would be sworn in as a cabinet rank minister.

Dhabekar was earlier dropped from the ministry after he was perceived to be hobnobbing with the Congress and allegedly trying to pressure the alliance by threatening to withdraw support. He would be sworn in as a minister of state along with Arjun Khotkar, Vinod G Patil and Vijay Kumar Dhavekar, all of the Shiv Sena.

The portfolio to be allotted to Vikhe Patil would be declared today, the Chief Minister said.

The new ministers would be sworn in at the Raj Bhavan by Governor P C Alexander at 9 am.

The move is significant as the alliance government fell short of majority in the last assembly elections and has been surviving on the support of independents. There are 45 independent MLAs in the assembly and the government claims that the support of 38 to 42 of them. The Congress is the single largest party in the assembly with 80 members.

With the induction of five more ministers, the strength of the state ministry would increase to 44. The existing 39-member ministry includes 18 Sena ministers (12 of cabinet rank), 17 BJP ministers (12 of cabinet rank) and four ministers of state who are independent MLAs.

Two ministers, Shashikant Sutar of the Sena and Mahadevrao Shivankar of the BJP, who held the agriculture and irrigation portfolios, respectively, were divested of their charge earlier after allegations of corruption was levelled against them by the social worker and Magsaysay award winner Anna Hazare. No new ministers had been inducted in their place and the Justice S W Puranik Committee was appointed by the state government to probe the charges against them.

The committees term has expired and it is expected to submit its report in thenext few days.

Asked if he would table the report of the Puranik committee report in the assembly, the Chief Minister said that he had no problem in doing so, but the report was yet to be received.

Earlier, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and the BJP national general secretary Pramod Mahajan have gone on record at a press conference that the two ministers would be reinstated if the Puranik Committee gave them a clean chit.