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| rowspan=”4″| [[File:Photograph of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, 2nd Chief Minister of West Bengal.jpg|70px]]
| rowspan=”4″| [[File:Photograph of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, 2nd Chief Minister of West Bengal.jpg|70px]]
| rowspan=”4″| ”'[[Mamata Banerjee]]”'<br/>{{small|(1882{{ndash}}1962)<br/>MLA for [[Bowbazar Assembly constituency|Bowbazar]], 1952{{ndash}}1962<br/>MLA for [[Chowrangee Assembly constituency|Chowrangee]], from 1962}}
| rowspan=”4″| ”'[[ ]]”'<br/>{{small|(1882{{ndash}}1962)<br/>MLA for [[Bowbazar Assembly constituency|Bowbazar]], 1952{{ndash}}1962<br/>MLA for [[Chowrangee Assembly constituency|Chowrangee]], from 1962}}
| {{ndash}}<br/>{{small|(Provincial)}}
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| rowspan=”4″| 26 January 1950
| rowspan=”4″| 26 January 1950
Head of the government of West Bengal
The chief minister of West Bengal (পশ্চিমবঙ্গের মুখ্যমন্ত্রী) is the de facto head of the executive branch of the Government of West Bengal, the subnational authority of the Indian state of West Bengal. The chief minister is head of the Council of Ministers and appoints ministers. The chief minister, along with their cabinet, exercises executive authority in the state. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly.
On 17 August 1947, the British Indian province of Bengal was partitioned into the Pakistani province of East Bengal and the Indian state of West Bengal. Since then West Bengal has had seven chief ministers, starting with Prafulla Chandra Ghosh of the Indian National Congress (INC) party as the premier (elected to lead the assembly while the chief minister is not appointed).[4] Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy in 1950 became the first formal chief minister of West Bengal after the implementation of the Indian Constitution. A period of political instability followed thereafter—West Bengal witnessed three elections, four coalition governments and three stints of President’s rule between 1967 and 1972—before Siddhartha Shankar Ray of the INC served a five-year term.[5]
The landslide victory of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front in the 1977 election began Jyoti Basu‘s 23-year continuous reign as chief minister. The length of his tenure was an all-India record until 2018, when he was surpassed by Sikkim’s Pawan Kumar Chamling.[6] Basu’s successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya continued the communist rule in West Bengal for another decade, when the Left Front was defeated in the 2011 election by the Trinamool Congress, thereby ending the 34-year long rule of the Left Front government, a fact that was noted by the international media. Sworn in on 20 May 2011, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee is West Bengal’s incumbent chief minister, the first woman to hold the office. She was subsequently voted to power in 2016 and 2021 assembly elections. She is one of the two female incumbent chief ministers in India as of 2024.
Premiers of West Bengal (1947–1950)
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Chief Ministers of West Bengal (1950–present)
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| Name | Party | Length of term | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longest continuous term | Total years of premiership | ||||
| 1 | Jyoti Basu | CPI(M) | 23 years, 137 days | 23 years, 137 days | |
| 2 | Mamata Banerjee | TMC | 14 years, 178 days | 14 years, 178 days | |
| 3 | Bidhan Chandra Roy | INC | 12 years, 156 days | 14 years, 159 days | |
| 4 | Buddhadeb Bhattacharya | CPI(M) | 10 years, 188 days | 10 years, 188 days | |
| 5 | Siddhartha Shankar Ray | INC | 5 years, 41 days | 5 years, 41 days | |
| 6 | Prafulla Chandra Sen | INC | 4 years, 234 days | 4 years, 234 days | |
| 7 | Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee | BC / INC | 1 year, 19 days | 2 years, 6 days | |
| 8 | Prafulla Chandra Ghosh | IND / INC | 160 days | 250 days | |
- ^ Since October 2013 Chief Minister Banerjee has worked from the top floor of the newly constructed Nabanna building in Howrah, while Writers’ Building undergoes renovation.[2]
- ^ This refers to the 90-member rump legislature that emerged following partition, representing the West Bengali constituencies of the erstwhile Bengal Legislative Assembly. It was constituted under the Government of India Act 1935, not the Indian Constitution, which was still in the process of being drafted.[5]
- ^ a b c d President’s rule may be imposed when the “government in a state is not able to function as per the Constitution”, which often happens because no party or coalition has a majority in the assembly. When President’s rule is in force in a state, its council of ministers stands dissolved. The office of chief minister thus lies vacant, and the administration is taken over by the governor, who functions on behalf of the central government. At times, the legislative assembly also stands dissolved.[8]
