By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Four Muslims, two each from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, including a woman took oath as ministers yesterday along with the 38-member council of ministers of the alliance government in Maharashtra. All the four Muslim ministers took oath in the name of Allah in Marathi language.
After hot talks between Congress and NCP for two weeks over number of ministers and portfolios in the new Maharashtra Government, the new cabinet under the leadership of Ashok Chavan of Congress took oath yesterday for second term. This will be third Congress-NCP alliance government in a row in the state.
Ashok Chavan took oath as 25th Chief Minister of Maharashtra while Chhagan Bhujbal of NCP as 7th Deputy Chief Minister. The 38-member cabinet including CM and his deputy has 20 ministers from NCP. The Congress has left five seats of its quota vacant for future inductions.
Of four Muslim ministers, two are of cabinet rank and two state ministers. Congress has given Arif Naseem Khan second chance in the cabinet while Hasan Musharraf has been inducted by NCP. The two are old faces of the cabinet while the other two as state ministers are new ones. While Fauzia Khan, a Member of Legislative Council, has become minister on NCP quota – the party did not give another chance to Nawab Malik – Abdus Sattar Abdun Nabi is from Congress.
The new Assembly will sit on November 9 when members will take oath.
The convent-educated Fauzia, in her mid-40s, is from Parbhani and considered close to NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.
Fauzia heads the Federation of All Maharashtra Minority Education Organisation and runs several educational institutions in Parabhani.