Scindia, say sources, pressed for nine ministerial berths for his loyalists and also made it clear that he wants these former MLAs to be given important portfolios, including rural development, health, PWD and power. On his part, Chouhan is learnt to have implored Scindia to scale down his demands to ministerial berths for six loyalists. The CM is learnt to have explained to Scindia that the state can have a maximum of 34 ministers and he wants to presently expand his cabinet to have 25-29 members so that some vacancies can be kept to accommodate other party leaders in the future. While Scindia reportedly had no issues with Chouhan keeping some vacancies to adjust possible BJP dissidents in the future, he made it clear that he wants his loyalists to be inducted immediately. Scindia, say sources, believes that the exclusion of his loyalists from the cabinet would make it difficult for them to win the bypolls necessitated by their resignation as Congress MLAs and will impact the stability of the Chouhan government.