Mumbai, Aug. 1 -- Deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Ajit Pawar has finally decided to act against Manikrao Kokate, weeks after a video showing the agriculture minister playing online rummy on his phone while seated in the state legislative council, went viral. While Kokate isn't losing his ministerial chair, his portfolio has been swapped with another NCP minister, Dattatray Bharne, who was in charge of the sports and youth welfare, and minority affairs departments. "Manikrao Kokate has been allocated the sports and youth welfare department and minority affairs department, while Dattatray Bharne has been allocated the agriculture department following the order of the governor," said a notification issued by the state general administration department late on Thursday. The decision was taken by Pawar at an NCP meeting on Thursday morning, according to party leaders. It was then conveyed to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has been upset with Kokate and a few Shiv Sena ministers for stoking controversies and embarrassing his government recently. "After giving him several warnings in the past, Ajitdada has decided to take action against Kokate," said a senior NCP leader, who requested anonymity. "The punishment will not be as harsh as the one awarded to Dhananjay Munde, as Kokate will not be removed from the state cabinet." Munde had to step down as minister in March after his close aide, Walmik Karad, was named as an accused in the murder of a village sarpanch, Santosh Deshmukh, in Beed. The rummy controversy isn't the only one Kokate found himself in recently. He also received flak after calling the state government a "beggar" while clarifying an earlier controversial statement comparing farmers with beggars. Fadnavis had then criticised him for making "irresponsible statements". The decision to change Kokate's portfolio has come a day after NCP (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar claimed that the state agriculture minister was playing the card game on his mobile for around 20 minutes in the legislative council. The state legislature also concluded the same following an investigation into the controversy. The viral video led to widespread criticism of Kokate at a time when Maharashtra continues to grapple with farmer suicides. However, Kokate has maintained that he wasn't playing rummy but was trying to get rid of an advertisement that had popped up on his mobile screen. The man replacing Kokate as agriculture minister, Bharne, is considered a close aide of Pawar. The three-term MLA from the Indapur assembly constituency in Pune has held several portfolios in successive state governments since 2019. In last year's assembly elections, he defeated NCP (SP) heavyweight Harshwardhan Patil by over 19,000 votes....