Panaji: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Sawant, who was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Goa for the second consecutive time on March 28, expanded his cabinet on Saturday.
Sawant inducted three more MLAs, including Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) leader Sudin Dhavalikar, as ministers, PTI reported.
Goa Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai administered the oath of office to three new ministers, including BJP MLAs Nilakant Halarankar and Subhash Faldesai.
The Chief Minister was present along with other members of his cabinet during the swearing-in ceremony held at Raj Bhavan here.
The Goa cabinet currently has 12 members, including Sawant, besides three ministers.
Dhavalikar was a minister in the late Manohar Parrikar-led governments as well as in the Sawant-led governments between 2017 and 2019.
However, the MGP leader was dropped from the cabinet before the last Lok Sabha elections.
Halarankar, who had earlier shifted his political affiliations to the BJP along with nine other MLAs in 2019, was a minister in the previous Congress-led government.
However, Faldesai has been included in the Go cabinet for the first time.
In the recently concluded elections, the BJP got 20 seats in the 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly. The Indian National Congress (INC) won 11 seats.
The saffron party, which emerged as the single largest party in Goa, formed the government with the support of three independent MLAs and two MLAs of MGP.