MUMBAI: Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday expanded his cabinet by inducting 18 new ministers.
Governor B S Koshyari administered the oath of office to the ministers at Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai.
State BJP president Chandrakant Patil too was sworn in as minister.
The strength of Maharashtra ministry has now gone up to 20, less than half the maximum allowed strength of 43.
On June 30, Shinde was sworn in as the chief minister and Devendra Fadnavis took oath as deputy CM.
Those who took oath as ministers on Tuesday include nine each from the Shinde group and the BJP.
The new BJP ministers are Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil, Vijaykumar Gavit, Girish Mahajan, Suresh Khade, Ravindra Chavan, Atul Save and Mangalprabhat Lodha.
From the Shinde group, Gulabrao Patil, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Sandipan Bhumre, Uday Samant, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Deepak Kesarkar and Shambhuraj Desai were sworn in as ministers.
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