This article is part of a series on the |
Politics of India |
---|
Indiaportal |
The prime minister of India is the chief executive of the Government of India and chair of the Union Council of Ministers. [1] [2] Although the president of India is the constitutional, nominal, and ceremonial head of state, [3] [4] [5] [6] in practice and ordinarily, the executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers. [7] [8] [6] The prime minister is the leader elected by the party with a majority in the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, which is the main legislative body in the Republic of India. [9] The prime minister and their cabinet are at all times responsible to the Lok Sabha. [10] [11] The prime minister can be a member of the Lok Sabha or of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament. The prime minister ranks third in the order of precedence.
The prime minister is appointed by the president of India; however, the prime minister has to enjoy the confidence of the majority of Lok Sabha members, who are directly elected every five years, unless a prime minister resigns. The prime minister is the presiding member of the Council of Ministers of the Union government. The prime minister unilaterally controls the selection and dismissal of members of the council; and allocation of posts to members within the government. This council, which is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha as per Article 75(3), assists the president regarding the operations under the latter's powers; however, by the virtue of Article 74 of the Constitution, such 'aid and advice' tendered by the council is binding.
Since 1947, India has had 14 prime ministers. [lower-alpha 1] Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first prime minister, serving as prime minister of the Dominion of India from 15 August 1947 until 26 January 1950, and thereafter of the Republic of India until his death in May 1964. (India conducted its first post-independence general elections in 1952). Earlier, Nehru had served as prime minister of the Interim Government of India during the British Raj from 2 September 1946 until 14 August 1947, his party, the Indian National Congress having won the 1946 Indian provincial elections. Nehru was succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose 1 year 7-month term ended in his death in Tashkent, then in the USSR, where he had signed the Tashkent Declaration between India and Pakistan. [13] Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, succeeded Shastri in 1966 to become the country's first female prime minister. [14] Eleven years later, her party the Indian National Congress lost the 1977 Indian general election to the Janata Party, whose leader Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress prime minister. [15] After Desai resigned in 1979, his former associate Charan Singh briefly held office until the Congress won the 1980 Indian general election and Indira Gandhi returned as prime minister. [16] Her second term as prime minister ended five years later on 31 October 1984, when she was assassinated by her bodyguards. [14] Her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as India's youngest premier. Members of Nehru–Gandhi family have been prime minister for approximately 38 years. [17]
After a general election loss, Rajiv Gandhi's five-year term ended; his former cabinet colleague, Vishwanath Pratap Singh of the Janata Dal, formed the year-long National Front coalition government in 1989. A seven-month interlude under prime minister Chandra Shekhar followed, after which the Congress party returned to power, forming the government under P. V. Narasimha Rao in June 1991, Rajiv Gandhi having been assassinated earlier that year. [18] Rao's five-year term was succeeded by four short-lived governments—Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 13 days in 1996, a year each under United Front prime ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral, and Vajpayee again for 13 months in 1998–1999. [18] In 1999, Vajpayee's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the general election, the first non-Congress alliance to do so, and he served a full five-year term as prime minister. [19] The Congress, and its United Progressive Alliance won the general elections in 2004 and 2009, Manmohan Singh serving as prime minister between 2004 and 2014. [20] The BJP won the 2014 Indian general election, and its parliamentary leader Narendra Modi formed the first non-Congress single party majority government. Modi has served as prime minister since. [21]
Colour key (for political coalitions/parties):
No. | Name | Party | Length of term | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Longest continuous term | Total years of premiership | ||||
1 | Jawaharlal Nehru | INC | 16 years, 286 days | 16 years, 286 days | |
2 | Indira Gandhi | INC/INC(I)/INC(R) | 11 years, 59 days | 15 years, 350 days | |
3 | Narendra Modi | BJP | 10 years, 4 days | 10 years, 4 days | |
4 | Manmohan Singh | INC | 10 years, 4 days | 10 years, 4 days | |
5 | Atal Bihari Vajpayee | BJP | 6 years, 64 days | 6 years, 80 days | |
6 | Rajiv Gandhi | INC(I) | 5 years, 32 days | 5 years, 32 days | |
7 | P. V. Narasimha Rao | INC(I) | 4 years, 330 days | 4 years, 330 days | |
8 | Morarji Desai | JP | 2 years, 126 days | 2 years, 126 days | |
9 | Lal Bahadur Shastri | INC | 1 year, 216 days | 1 year, 216 days | |
10 | Vishwanath Pratap Singh | JD | 343 days | 343 days | |
11 | Inder Kumar Gujral | JD | 332 days | 332 days | |
12 | H. D. Deve Gowda | JD | 324 days | 324 days | |
13 | Chandra Shekhar | SJP(R) | 223 days | 223 days | |
14 | Charan Singh | JP(S) | 170 days | 170 days | |
Acting | Gulzarilal Nanda | INC | 13 days | 26 days |
No. | Political party | Number of Prime ministers | Total years of holding PMO |
---|---|---|---|
1 | INC/INC(I)/INC(R) | 6 (+1 acting) | 54 years, 123 days |
2 | BJP | 2 | 16 years, 84 days |
3 | JD | 3 | 2 years, 269 days |
4 | JP | 1 | 2 years, 126 days |
5 | SJP(R) | 1 | 223 days |
6 | JP(S) | 1 | 170 days |
Politics of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution. India is a parliamentary secular democratic republic in which the president of India is the head of state & first citizen of India and the Prime Minister of India is the head of government. It is based on the federal structure of government, although the word is not used in the Constitution itself. India follows the dual polity system, i.e. federal in nature, that consists of the central authority at the centre and states at the periphery. The Constitution defines the organizational powers and limitations of both central and state governments; it is well recognised, fluid and considered supreme, i.e. the laws of the nation must conform to it.
The prime minister of India is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the executive. The prime minister has to be a member of one of the houses of bicameral Parliament of India, alongside heading the respective house. The prime minister and their cabinet are at all times responsible to the Lok Sabha.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an Indian politician and poet who served three terms as the 10th Prime Minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999, followed by a full term from 1999 to 2004. He was the first non-Indian National Congress prime minister to serve a full term in the office. Vajpayee was one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was a member of the RSS, a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation. He was also a Hindi poet and a writer.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is a political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP is aligned with right-wing politics and has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteer paramilitary organisation. Its policies adhere to Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology. As of January 2024, it is the country's biggest political party in terms of representation in the Parliament of India as well as state legislatures.
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party or simply the Congress, is a political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. The Congress led India to independence from the United Kingdom, and significantly influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.
Charan Singh, better known as Chaudhary Charan Singh, was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and author who was a central figure among the agrarian community in India during late 1970s and early 1980s. Singh was principally known for his land and agricultural reform initiatives. He briefly served as the 5th prime minister of India from July 1979 to August 1979 and was Member of Parliament (MP) for Baghpat. During prime ministership he was a member of the Janata Party (Secular). Singh also briefly served as deputy prime minister of India from January 1979 to July 1979 as a member of the Janata Party. Singh is widely regarded as the "Champion of farmers", after his life has been dedicated to advocating for the wellbeing and rights of farmers. He is the first leader outside the Indian National Congress who formed government in the northern India and became 5th chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
The Janata Party abbreviated JP, lit. People's Party) is an unrecognized political party in India. It was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian National Congress. In the 1977 general election, the party defeated the Congress and Janata leader Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress prime minister in independent modern India's history.
Manmohan Singh is an Indian retired politician, economist, academician and bureaucrat who served as the 13th Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. A member of the Indian National Congress, Singh was the first Sikh prime minister of India. He was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term. Singh is also regarded as the most educated prime minister of India.
Madhavrao Jivajirao Scindia was an Indian politician and a minister in the Government of India. He was a member of the Indian National Congress party.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, a region located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and part of the larger region of Kashmir which has been the subject of a dispute between India, Pakistan and China since 1947. Jammu and Kashmir was administered by India as a state from 17 November 1952 to 31 October 2019, and Article 370 conferred on it the power to have a separate constitution, a state flag, and autonomy of internal administration.
The Indian National Congress was established when 72 representatives from all over the country met at Bombay in 1885. Prominent delegates included Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, W. C. Banerjee, S. Ramaswami Mudaliar, S. Subramania Iyer, and Romesh Chunder Dutt. The Englishman Allan Octavian Hume, a former British civil servant, was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress.
Although India is a parliamentary democracy, the country's politics has become dynastic or with high level of nepotism, possibly due to the absence of party organizations, independent civil-society associations which mobilize support for a party, or centralized financing of elections. The dynastic phenomenon is present at the national, state, regional, and district level. The Nehru–Gandhi family has produced three Indian prime ministers, and family members have largely led the Congress party since 1978. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also has several dynastic leaders. In addition to the major national parties, other national and regional parties such as Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal Secular, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Kerala Congress, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Indian Union Muslim League, AIMIM, and the Nationalist Congress Party are all dominated by families, mostly those of the party founders.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is an Indian academician. He was the president of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank and was the Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University from July 2017 to July 2019.
The Jan Morcha was an Indian political party founded by V. P. Singh after he left the Indian National Congress party in 1987 upon being dismissed as Defence Minister by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Together with Arun Nehru, Arif Mohammed Khan, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Vidya Charan Shukla, Ram Dhan, Raj Kumar Rai and Satyapal Malik, Singh formed a nucleus of opposition to the Rajiv Gandhi government that had a commanding majority in the Lok Sabha.
Karan Singh is an Indian politician and philosopher. He is the Titular Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. From 1952 to 1965 he was the Sadr-i-Riyasat (President) of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He is the chairperson trustee of the Dharmarth Trust of Jammu and Kashmir which maintains 175 temples in north India and works in other areas such as historical preservation.
General elections were held in India between 5 September and 3 October 1999, a few months after the Kargil War. Results were announced on 6 October 1999.
General elections were held in India on 22 and 26 November 1989 to elect the members of the ninth Lok Sabha. The incumbent Indian National Congress (Indira) government under the premiership of Rajiv Gandhi lost its mandate, even though it was still the largest single party in the Lok Sabha. V. P. Singh, the leader of the second largest party Janata Dal was invited by the President of India to form the government. The government was formed with outside support from the Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist parties led by CPI(M). V. P. Singh was sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister of India on 2 December 1989.
General elections were held in India on 27 April, 2 May and 7 May 1996 to elect the members of the eleventh Lok Sabha. The elections resulted in a hung parliament with no single party having a clear majority. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had won the most seats, formed a short-lived government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, two weeks later the United Front coalition was able to secure a parliamentary majority and H. D. Deve Gowda of Janata Dal became Prime Minister. In 1997 Inder Kumar Gujral, also from the United Front, succeeded Gowda as Prime Minister. Due to the instability, early elections were held in 1998. The elections were the first since 1980 in which every states' seats were elected in a single election period.
Bangalore South is one of the 28 Lok Sabha (Parliamentary) constituencies in Karnataka state, in southern India. Currently the seat is held by Tejasvi Surya of Bharatiya Janata Party who won against B. K. Hariprasad of Indian National Congress by a margin of 3,31,192 votes in the 2019 Indian general election.
The Leader of the House in Lok Sabha is the parliamentary chairperson of the party that holds a majority in the Lok Sabha and is responsible for government business in the house. The office holder is usually the prime minister if they are a member of the house. If the prime minister is not a member of the Lok Sabha, usually the senior-most minister in the union cabinet serves as the leader of the house.
The head of government is the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister is the head of government.
An elected President is the nominal head of state but exercises little power.
...The president is the constitutional head. (p. 185)
The President is the head of the Union of India
...the executive authority is vested in the prime minister and in their Council of Ministers. (p. 185)
Executive power, ordinarily, is exercised by Prime Minister.
... Like the British system, there are two houses of parliament – the Lok Sabha, which has 545 members, is the main legislative body. In practice, it is the party with a majority in the Lok Sabha which elects its leader as the Prime Minister.
Along with his or her cabinet, the Prime Minister is responsible to the Lower House of Parliament.
...Both for the Union and the states, a "cabinet-type" system of parliamentary government has been instituted in which the executive is continuously responsible to the legislature. (p. 185)