Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Jayant Patil took oath as one of the ministers in the Maharashtra state cabinet in a grand ceremony at Mumbai's Shivaji Park on Thursday.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray took oath as the 18th chief minister of Maharashtra, and six ministers - two each from the Shiv Sena, the NCP, and the Congress - were also sworn in at the ceremony attended by top state and national leaders across the political spectrum.
Appointed as the legislative leader of the NCP earlier this week, Jayant Patil won in the recently held Maharashtra elections from Islampur constituency in the Sangli district. He also held the Islampur Assembly seat four times before since 1990.
Son of renowned leader of Maharashtra Rajarambapu Patil, he held many important portfolios in his lifetime - becoming the finance minister of Maharashtra from October 1999 to December 2008 in the NCP-Congress led government, and then becoming the Home Minister of Maharastra in the Ashok Chavan-led Maharashtra government (8 December 2008 to 9 November 2010). He also became the Rural Development Minister from 2009-2014.
Apart from him, five other ministers took oath as ministers which includes Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde and Subhash Desai; NCP's Chhagan Bhujbal; and Congress' Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut.
Thackeray was elected as the leader of the Sena-NCP-Congress combine, named 'Maha Vikas Aghadi', on Tuesday.
Earlier on Thursday, the three-party alliance of the Sena, the NCP, and the Congress released their common minimum programme (CMP) for the coalition government.
The common minimum programme was drafted by the senior leaders of the three parties over the course of several meetings last week. The final draft was then presented to the top leadership of the parties, including respective presidents for the approval.
Key promises from the manifestos of all three parties have been included in the CMP.
The last one month has been tumultuous in Maharashtra's politics which included 13 days of President's rule and a three-day government of BJP's Devendra Fadanvis.
Fadnavis government, formed after NCP's Ajit Pawar offered his support to the BJP on November 23, collapsed on Tuesday afternoon, after both leaders resigned as chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively.
Ajit Pawar, who was the legislative party leader of the NCP, broke ranks with the party and promised support to the BJP but resigned on Tuesday after the Supreme Court directed that the floor test be held on Wednesday. Soon after the SC verdict, Fadnavis also resigned as chief minister, bringing an end to his 80-hour tenure.
Later in the evening, Sena-NCP-Congress MLAs met at a Mumbai hotel and elected Uddhav Thackeray as their leader. They then staked claim to form the government.
In the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, the BJP is the single-largest party with 105 MLAs, while the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress have 56, 54 and 44 members, respectively.
