Jayant Patil, The New Maharashtra Minister From Sharad Pawar Party NCP

Shiv Sena, NCP, Congress have come together to form “Maha Vikas Aghadi” in the state.

New Delhi:

National Congress Party’s Jayant Patil today took oath as a minister in the Maharashtra cabinet along with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who was sworn-in as state’s Chief Minister. Among the other leaders who took oath include National Congress Party’s Chhagan Bhujbal, Shiv Sena’s Subhash Desai, Eknath Shinde and Congress’ Balasaheb Thorat and Nitin Raut.

Jayant Patil, son of renowned Maharashtra politician Rajaram ‘Bapu’ Patil, was appointed as the legislative leader of the party earlier this week.

Mr Patil, who comes from Sangli district, won the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly polls from the Islampur constituency. Before this, he was a four-time MLA from the Walva assembly seat since 1990.

Jayant Patil has served the state on several important portfolios. He was the finance minister of the state from 1999 to 2008, and home minister from 2008 to 2009 in the Congress-led UPA government. He then served as the Minister for Rural Development from 2009 to 2014.

In 2018, the NCP leader was appointed as party’s state president chief.

Before the oath ceremony, Mr Patil said that the alliance would work on complete farm loan waiver. On Mumbai’s Aarey colony, where hundreds of trees were cut to build metro line, the NCP leader said, “We will see if there is any alternative available and only then we will decide . We will not do what the last government did.”

The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress have come together to form “Maha Vikas Aghadi” in the state. The BJP and the Sena, which fought the last month’s Assembly polls in an alliance, secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats. The Sena, however, broke its three-decade-long ties with the BJP after the BJP declined to share the chief minister’s post. The NCP won 54 seats and the Congress won 44 seats.