The much-awaited portfolio and allocation of the state cabinet are on the expected lines, but not without tweaks that are synonymous with CM Devendra Fadnavis. For example, two senior ministers have been accommodated in the water resources department, which has been split into regions. One of the ministers was in charge of the entire water resources department and helmed with rural development, and the other headed the revenue department in the previous governments. It is kind of back to past experiments in which the state had two water resources ministers, one for the Krishna Valley development and the other for the rest of Maharashtra. Looking at the composition, the freshers have been given portfolios that are considered very important.

Some see the ‘water resources division’ as the senior ministers Girish Mahajan and Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil’s demotion, but insiders say that their experience will be useful in the government’s new big thrust area where the concentrated focus is needed to implement river linking and the water grid project and to complete unfinished projects. The plan is to mitigate the drought situation in water-deficient Marathwada and other parts of Maharashtra. Fadnavis, himself, led water resources in the Shinde government. A decade ago, the department was at the centre of a big controversy when the BJP was in the Opposition.