List of female Indian chief ministers

The five incumbent woman chief ministers in India — Jayalalithaa, Vasundhara Raje, Mamata Banerjee, Anandiben Patel and Mehbooba Mufti

Sixteen women have served as the chief minister of an Indian state. Currently, five are in office—Jayalalithaa, Anandiben Patel, Vasundhara Raje, Mamata Banerjee and Mehbooba Mufti. Of the thirteen states to have been headed by a female chief minister, only three—Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh—have had two woman premiers.

In the Republic of India, a chief minister is the head of government of each of twenty-nine states and two union territories (Delhi and Puducherry). According to the Constitution of India, at the state-level, the governor is de jure head, but de facto executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the state legislative assembly, the governor usually invites the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats to form the government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. Given he has the confidence of the assembly, the chief minister's term is for five years; the office is subject to no term limits.^[1]

Chronological list of female Indian chief ministers

Key

*  incumbent chief minister

No	Name	Portrait	State	Term(s)	Total tenure	Party
1	Sucheta Kriplani	–	Uttar Pradesh	2 October 1963 – 13 March 1967	1258 days	Indian National Congress
2	Nandini Satpathy	–	Orissa	14 June 1972 – 3 March 1973 6 March 1974 – 16 December 1976	1278 days	Indian National Congress
3	Shashikala Kakodkar	–	Goa	12 August 1973 – 27 April 1979	2084 days	Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party
4	Syeda Anwara Taimur	–	Assam	6 December 1980 – 30 June 1981	206 days	Indian National Congress
5	Janaki Ramachandran		Tamil Nadu	7–30 January 1988	23 days	All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
6	Jayalalithaa *		Tamil Nadu	24 June 1991 – 12 May 1996 14 May 2001 – 21 September 2001 2 March 2002 – 12 May 2006 16 May 2011 – 29 September 2014 23 May 2015 – present	4679 days	All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
7	Mayawati		Uttar Pradesh	13 June 1995 – 18 October 1995 21 March 1997 – 21 September 1997 3 May 2002 – 29 August 2003 13 May 2007 – 7 March 2012	2554 days	Bahujan Samaj Party
8	Rajinder Kaur Bhattal	–	Punjab	21 January 1996 – 12 February 1997	388 days	Indian National Congress
9	Rabri Devi		Bihar	25 July 1997 – 11 February 1999 9 March 1999 – 2 March 2000 11 March 2000 – 6 March 2005	2746 days	Rashtriya Janata Dal
10	Sushma Swaraj		Delhi	13 October 1998 – 3 December 1998	51 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
11	Sheila Dikshit		Delhi	3 December 1998 – 8 December 2013	5484 days	Indian National Congress
12	Uma Bharati		Madhya Pradesh	8 December 2003 – 23 August 2004	259 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
13	Vasundhara Raje *		Rajasthan	8 December 2003 – 11 December 2008 8 December 2013 – present	2673 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
14	Mamata Banerjee *		West Bengal	20 May 2011 – present	1781 days	All India Trinamool Congress
15	Anandiben Patel *		Gujarat	21 May 2014 – present	683 days	Bharatiya Janata Party
16	Mehbooba Mufti *		Jammu and Kashmir	4 April 2016 – present	0 days	Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party

See also

• List of female Indian governors
• List of current Indian chief ministers

References

1. Durga Das Basu. Introduction to the Constitution of India. 1960. 20th Edition, 2011 Reprint. pp. 241, 245. LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa Nagpur. ISBN 978-81-8038-559-9.