The Uddhav Thackeray led Maharashtra government on Monday (30 December) induced new faces as ministers, one of them being Congress MLA Aslam Shaikh.

Incidentally, Shaikh was one of the Congress MLAs in the state who had written to the erstwhile president Pranab Mukherjee seeking clemency for terrorist Yakub Memon, one of the prime convicts in the 1993 serial blast case.

Shaikh had made this demand along with other current and former legislative office bearers of the Congress namely Naseem Khan, Amin Patel, Shaikh Asif, Shaikh Rashid, Muzaffar Hussain, Husanabano Khalife, Yusuf Abrahani and Javed Juneja.

It may be recalled that Shiv Sena which was then part of the ruling NDA dispensation, had welcomed the capital punishment against Memon.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a message that those who indulge in terror acts against India will be hanged .I welcome this message and I thank the Prime Minister”, senior Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam was quoted as saying.