A meeting to decide ministerial portfolios to be allotted to 39 ministers sworn-in on Sunday was scheduled to be held on Monday evening at ‘Ramgiri’, the Nagpur residence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, sources said, even as the first day of the six-day winter session began in Nagpur.

Both the Deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar are expected to be present at this meeting, according to sources, who said that a decision regarding portfolio distribution would be made by Monday night after hectic discussions which have been on ever since the result of the Maharashtra assembly election was announced on November 23.

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There has been heated speculation about which minister could get what portfolio, even after the conclusion of cabinet expansion and swearing-in ceremony. Shortly after the swearing-in ceremony, Fadnavis himself had announced on Sunday that ministerial portfolio allocation would be completed “within the next two to three days”.

As things stand, all indications point to the possibility of the home portfolio being retained by the BJP and it is likely to be held by CM Fadnavis himself, while the finance portfolio is most likely to be retained by the NCP’s Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, sources said, adding that the housing portfolio is likely to be given to the Eknath-Shinde-led Shiv Sena. However, it is not yet known who among those sworn in could head the ministry.

Earlier, Fadnavis announced at a press conference that the tenures of ministers, who have been inducted, will be for two-and-a-half years. By the end of that tenure, BJP’s ministers plan to conduct what Fadnavis called “a performance audit of every minister.” “If and when it is found that a minister has not been working as per expectations, there will be a change and somebody else will replace him,” he said.

Sources said that the general consensus among the Mahayuti parties is that such an arrangement would not only fix accountability and exert pressure on the ministers to perform well, but a mid-term change would also give hope to other ministerial aspirants who could not be made ministers this time.

“A performance audit of ministers will be done and all three of us (BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP) have agreed to this,” Fadnavis claimed, adding that those leaders from the BJP who could not find a place in the cabinet would be assigned an organisational role to strengthen the party.

Eknath Shinde said that he too had decided to give a tenure of two-and-a-half years to new Shiv Sena ministers. “Those who perform well will progress,” he added.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, Ambadas Danve from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, said that the Mahayuti government is enacting a “drama” by keeping the winter session of the state assembly for merely six days. He said that in previous years, the Nagpur winter session of the assembly used to be held for a period of anywhere between three weeks to one month.