List of chief ministers of West Bengal


The Chief Minister of West Bengal is the chief executive of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's de jure head, but de facto executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, the state's governor usually invites the party 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 the confidence of the assembly, the chief minister's term is for five years and is subject to no term limits.
In 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 eight chief ministers, starting with Prafulla Chandra Ghosh of the Indian National Congress party. His five-month stint as Prime Minister of West Bengal—as the office was known until January 1950—was succeeded by the 14-year reign of colleague Bidhan Chandra Roy, whose death in 1962 led to Prafulla Chandra Sen serving out the remainder of his term. A period of political instability followed—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.
The landslide victory of the Communist Party of India -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. Basu's successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya continued Communist rule in West Bengal for another decade, when the Left Front was defeated in the 2011 election by the Trinamool Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. Sworn in on 20 May 2011, Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee is West Bengal's incumbent chief minister, the first woman to hold the office. In September 2012 her party quit the UPA, and went on to contest the 2016 election alone, returning to power with an increased mandate.

Chief Ministers of West Bengal

Footnotes