6. How many ministers does it take to run a state?

| Aug 8, 2022, 22:25 IST

More than two

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is likely to expand his cabinet today by inducting at least 15 ministers.
Shinde and Fadnavis, who were sworn in on June 30, have been functioning as a two-member cabinet inviting criticism from opposition leaders.

When cabinets were empty

This is not the first time in the last few years that a state has gone without a full cabinet for about a month.
It was 32 days after the Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP coalition government was formed in Maharashtra in 2019, that chief minister Uddhav Thackeray expanded his cabinet to its full strength.
In 2019, the then Karnataka chief minister ran his government without a cabinet for 24 days, even holding four cabinet meetings in which he was the only minister in attendance.
For 68 days between December 13, 2018, and February 18 in 2019, Telangana had the smallest cabinet in the country with the state’s CM heading a two-member cabinet.

What does the law say?

The Constitution (91st Amendment) Act, 2003 limits the size of all ministries to 15% of the total number of members in the Lok Sabha (for central government) or the state assembly (for states).
A concession has been made for smaller states where the strength of the assembly is 40 or less. These state governments can have a maximum of 12 ministers.
While the Constitution mentions the lower limit of 12 ministers, the Supreme Court had ruled in 2008 that there is no violation of the law if a council of ministers has less members than the lower limit because the Act was enacted to put a cap on the huge expenditure incurred by states because of jumbo cabinets.

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