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

Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar was given the Finance and Planning portfolio on Friday, nearly two weeks after he broke away from the original party and took oath as Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister.

Eight of Pawar's NCP colleagues who were sworn in as ministers on July 2 also received their portfolios, said a statement issued by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's office.

As per the statement, Dhananjay Munde has been given Agriculture, while Dilip Walse-Patil will be the Cooperation 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.