Ajit Pawar is Pune’s guardian minister; 7 NCP ministers given charge of districts

The guardian minister chair the meetings of District Planning Development Committee (DPDC) which control the implementation of developmental and infrastructure schemes in the given district.

The minister usually has a final say on deciding the expenditure of DPDC funds and many a times it has been observed that the minister favours the party workers and areas eyeing the electoral gains.

In the three party government, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP is eyeing to increase its electoral tally in the upcoming Lok Sabha as well as Assembly polls. Controlling the DPDC would mean NCP ministers having upper hand in respective districts.

Three months since Ajit joined the government, the CM had not moved ahead with the guardian ministerships after which the NCP had registered its unhappiness over the developments. A visit to New Delhi by Shinde and Fadnavis on Tuesday night seem to have sorted this issue at present.

Revenue Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil was given the additional responsibility of Akola district in Vidarbha which was earlier with Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Fadnavis was holding the responsibilities of six districts from Vidarbha: Nagpur, Gadchiroli, Amaravati, Akola, Bhandara and Wardha. However, after the redistribution, he will look after only Nagpur and Gadchiroli.

Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Anil Patil from the NCP will be the guardian minister of Nandurbar while the former guardian minister from BJP, Vijaykumar Gavit, will now be in charge of Bhandara in Vidarbha.

Senior NCP leader and Cooperation Minister Dilip Walse-Patil will be the guardian minister of Buldhana in Vidarbha while Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif will look after his home district of Kolhapur. Both these districts were earlier with Shiv Sena’s Gulabrao Patil and Deepak Kesarkar, respectively.

While Food and Drug Administration Minister Dharmaraobaba Atram will be the guardian minister of Gondia which was earlier with BJP’s Sudhir Mungantiwar, Agriculture Minister Dhananjay Munde and Youth and Sports Development Minister Sanjay Bansode will be the guardian ministers of Marathwada’s Beed and Parbhani districts, respectively.

Mungantiwar from the BJP will handle Wardha district in Vidarbha, in addition to his home district Chandrapur. Another BJP leader and Housing minister Atul Save was the earlier in-charge of Beed while Parbhani was with Sena’s Tanaji Sawant.

Seven out of nine NCP ministers have been given district guardian responsibilities, except senior minister Chhagan Bhujbal and the only woman minister in the cabinet, Aditi Tatkare. Both hail from Nashik and Raigad districts, respectively.

The NCP had demanded that Tatkare be appointed the district guardian minister of Raigad. Uday Samant from the Shinde Sena is the current district guardian minister of Raigad. Similarly, the NCP had also sought the guardian ministership of Nashik and Satara but Dada Bhuse and Shambhuraj Desai of Shinde Sena were not changed.

Ajit Pawar had excused himself from the cabinet meeting on Tuesday and did not accompany Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to Delhi.
While NCP leaders had claimed that he was suffering from a “throat infection”, state Opposition leaders had described it as “political illness”.