Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Pankaja Munde and Nitesh Rane were among 39 legislators inducted into Maharashtra’s new Council of Ministers on Sunday.

Other BJP leaders who were sworn-in as ministers included the party’s state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, former Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Chandrakant Patil, Mangal Prabhat Lodha and Ashish Shelar.

Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Aditi Tatkare and Narhari Zirwal were among leaders from the Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party faction who took oath.

Gulabrao Patil, Uday Samant and Sanjay Shirsat were among leaders from the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena who were sworn-in as ministers.

Among the ministers sworn-in on Sunday, 19 were from the BJP, 11 from the Shinde Sena and nine from Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction.

The allocation of ministerial portfolios was not immediately clear.

The ministers were administered the oath of office by Governor CP Radhakrishnan in Nagpur, where the Legislative Assembly will convene for the Winter Session on Monday.

Munde, currently a Member of Legislative Council, was a state minister between 2014 and 2019.

Nitesh Rane, the son of Union minister Narayan Rane, has been an MLA from Kankavli since 2014. He is facing cases relating to alleged hate speech.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and former state home minister Dilip Walse Patil were not inducted into the Council of Ministers. Both leaders, from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP faction, were in the Cabinet in the previous Mahayuti government.

On December 5, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn-in as the chief minister. He held the post between 2014 and 2019 and was the deputy chief minister from June 2022.

Shinde and Ajit Pawar had taken oath as Fadnavis’ deputies.

No other MLA was inducted into the Cabinet at the time and key ministerial portfolios such as home affairs and finance had also not been distributed.

The Mahayuti alliance comprising the BJP, the Shinde Sena and the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar won the Assembly election on November 23 by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.

The BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 132 seats. The Shinde Sena won in 57 seats and Ajit Pawar’s NCP group won in 41 constituencies.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi – comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the NCP faction led by Sharad Pawar and the Congress – won 46 seats.

Also read: Cash transfers, caste calculus: What was behind the Mahayuti’s sweep in Maharashtra?