List of current Indian chief ministers
In the Republic of India, a chief minister is the head of government of each of the twenty-nine states and three of the eight union territories. 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 with a majority of seats to form the state government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. Given they have the assembly's confidence, the chief minister's term is usually for a maximum of five years; there are no limits to the number of terms they can serve.
At present, the office of Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir is vacant. Of the thirty incumbents, one is a woman—Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Serving since March 2000, Odisha's Naveen Patnaik has the longest incumbency. Amarinder Singh of Punjab is the oldest chief minister while Arunachal Pradesh's Pema Khandu is the youngest. Twelve incumbents belong to the Bharatiya Janata Party and four to the Indian National Congress; no other party has more than one chief minister in office.
