Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has finally appointed senior bureaucrats to run his Mantralaya office. He has made one exception though, that of retaining Bhushan Gagrani in an all-important team that the senior babu had been part of in the earlier Devendra Fadnavis government for over a year. In addition, Gagrani's four-batch junior Vikas Kharage has also been shifted to the chief minister's office from the forest department.

Gagrani (1990 batch of IAS) holds a feat that many bureaucrats can only dream of — he has worked with CMs in the previous Congress-NCP and BJP-Sena coalition governments till date. Being seniormost among IAS officers in the CMO, he will be made Principal Secretary (1), followed by Kharage as Principal Secretary (2). Both will share the department work as decided by Thackeray. Gagrani has also been given additional charge of the industries department till a full-time appointment is made.