After a day of much embarrassment, the Congress party finally managed to appoint two new Ministers to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's government.
On Sunday, the party found itself cornered when it had to cancel the planned swearing in ceremony due to infighting between party leaders.
Abdul Sattar, the party’s senior MLA from state’s Marathwada region and Amit Deshmukh, son of former Maharashtra chief minister late Vilasrao Deshmukh, were sworn in as cabinet and state minister respectively by Governor K. Sankaranarayanan. The swearing in comes on the first day of state assembly’s monsoon session, which will also be the last one before the upcoming the state elections to be held in October.
According to sources, the state Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was unwilling to include Mr. Sattar in the Cabinet since he was considered close to former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who had to quit on account of the Adarsh scam.
Mr. Deshmukh’s inclusion in the state cabinet is seen as the political rehabilitation of the former CM’s son, who was sidelined in the state politics after his father’s untimely death. It is also considered as an attempt to promote the new leadership in the state’s Marathwada region.
Meanwhile, the NCP has announced its senior leader Praful Patel’s candidature for the Rajya Sabha election to be held on June 19. Mr. Patel has lost the recently held Lok Sabha election from Bhandara-Gondiya constituency in Maharashtra to BJP’s Nana Patole.
