Former chief minister Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar and former Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Govindrao Adik were among the 53 persons sworn-in on Saturday as ministers in Sushilkumar Shinde's cabinet.

Governor Mohammed Fazal administered the oath of office to the MLAs at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai.

A total of 23 cabinet ministers, 13 from the Congress and 10 from the NCP were administered the oath of office.

The 13 Congress cabinet ministers are:
1. Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar
2. Govindrao Adik
3. Patangrao Kadam
4. Anand Deokate
5. Vilas Patil
6. Ashok Chavan
7. Jaywant Awle
8. Satish Chaturvedi
9. Surupsinh Naik
10. Amrish Patel
11. Vasant Purke
12. Babasaheb Dhabekar
13. Sayed Ahmed

The 10 NCP cabinet ministers are:
1. Digvijay Khanvilkar
2. R R Patil
3. Ajit Pawar
4. Vikramsinh Patankar
5. Dilip Valse-Patil
6. Jayant Patil
7. Sureshdada Jain
8. Laxman Dhoble
9. Anil Deshmukh
10. Jaydatt Kshirsagar.

The 15 Congress ministers of state are:
1. Manikrao Thakre
2. Vasudha Deshmukh
3. Eknath Gaikwad
4. Prakash Awade
5. Kripashankar Singh
6. Balasaheb Thorat
7. Rajendra Darda
8. Balasaheb Shivrakar
9. Anees Ahmed
10. Basavraj Patil
11. Mohammed Naseem Khan
12. Dilip Deshmukh [Vilasrao Deshmukh's brother]
13. Suresh Shetty
14. Bandu Sawarbandhe
15. Chandrakant Chhajed

The 15 NCP ministers of state are:
1. Babasaheb Kupekar
2. Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar
3. Sunil Tatkare
4. Hemant Deshmukh
5. Vimal Mundada
6. Nawab Malik
7. Madan Pisal
8. Dilip Sopal
9. Dr Vijay Kumar Gavit
10. Subhash Thakre
11. Hassan Mushreef
12. Rajendra Shingne
13. Rajesh Tope
14. Manohar Naik
15. Prashant Hire

Fifteen ministers had been sworn in on January 18 along with Shinde. The Democratic Front government in Maharashtra will now have 69 ministers as against 58 during Vilasrao Deshmukh's tenure.

Prominent among the ministers who were dropped are Rohidas Patil, [contender for the chief minister's post], Shivajirao Moghe and Prof Ramakrishna More.

Asked about Sunil Tatkare's inclusion, Shinde said he did it in keeping with the wishes of the NCP, the Congress' coalition partner. Tatkare's inclusion in Vilasrao Deshmukh's ministry last year had sparked off a crisis, which ended with the Democratic Front government having to face a confidence vote in the state assembly.

Shinde also told reporters after the swearing in ceremony that he was forced to go in for a jumbo ministry in the interests of the state. Doing otherwise would have meant risking an assembly poll, he explained.

With inputs from Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Mumbai