Mumbai: Soon after taking oath as chief minister of Maharashtra for the third time, Devendra Fadnavis and his deputies Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde got down to work.
Barely two hours after a grand, star-studded swearing-in ceremony at Azad Maidan, the trio reached Mantralaya, the state secretariat.
They were given a traditional welcome by the Mantralaya staff, before the three leaders offered floral tributes to the portraits of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Jijabai, BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule.
Fadnavis, Shinde and Pawar then chaired the first cabinet meeting of the new government and interacted with senior officials.
In his first decision after taking oath as Maharashtra’s 20th CM, Fadnavis approved monetary help to Pune resident Chandrakant Kurhade, whose wife had applied for financial assistance.
“The first signature I have done today is that I have decided to give Rs 5 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to a patient for bone marrow transplant treatment… The kind of mandate we have received this time, I believe that there is definitely a pressure of that mandate, pressure of people’s love on us and I feel that. When expectations are big, the challenge is also big, because people have expectations from you, so definitely there is pressure on me and as far as the question of fiscal discipline is concerned, we will definitely have to work on it, because we have made a very ambitious plan,” Fadnavis told newspersons.
Asked about the size of the Cabinet and when it will be expanded, Fadnavis said, “Who will get what ministry, that will be decided by the three of us together and it is in the final stage. The work of the ministers in the previous government is being assessed and further decision will be taken on that basis.”
Asked about the delay in government formation, as 12 days have passed since the results were announced, Fadnavis was dismissive.
“I don’t believe that there is any such delay (in forming the government). Even before this, in 2004, there was a delay of about 12-13 days. In 2009, there was a delay of about 9 days. We will have to understand that when there is a coalition government, many decisions have to be taken. In a coalition government, consultation has to be done on a very large scale. We have done that consultation and we have almost finalised the portfolio as well, there is some left, we will do that as well,” Fadnavis replied.
