Mumbai: Ending its acrimonious split with Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena will join the Maharashtra government on Friday with 12 of its nominees, including five of cabinet rank, set to be inducted into the ministry. But there will be no Deputy Chief Minister from the party.
According to the sources, Sena is likely to get ministries for forest, industries, environment and energy.
The names of senior Sena leaders doing the rounds for a seat in the council of ministers are Diwakar Raote, Subhash Desai, Eknath Shinde, Ramdas Kadam, Deepak Sawant, Vijay Shivtare, Sanjay Rathod, Ravindra Waikar, Rajesh shirsagar and Deepak Kesarkar.
The new cabinet will have 32 ministers in all, the Shiv Sena will get five Cabinet and seven Minister of State berths.
The induction of BJP's oldest saffron ally will give the government a clear majority of 184 in a House of 288. The BJP has 121 MLAs while the Shiv Sena 63. The NCP, which has 41 MLAs, had announced outside support to the state government, which was sworn in on October 31.
With Sena now set to join the government, Fadnavis can breathe easy during the winter session of legislature, beginning in Nagpur on December 8.
At present the Fadnavis Ministry's strength is 10, including the Chief Minister. Eight of them are of Cabinet rank.
"People voted against Congress and NCP. People wanted BJP and Sena to form government in Maharashtra," Fadnavis said.
The announcement came after days of parleys between the two parties which saw hard-bargaining for portfolios. The swearing in will take place at 4 PM at the Vidhan Bhawan premises.
(With inputs from PTI)
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