The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is the

chief executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n state of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

. In accordance with the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ri ...

, the

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

is a state's ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legally ...

'' head, but ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' executive authority rests with the

chief minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

. Following elections to the

Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha or the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Madhya Pradesh state in India. The seat of the Vidhan Sabha is at Bhopal, the capital of the state. It is housed in the ''Vidhan ...

, the state's governor usually invites the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats to form the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose

council of ministers A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

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 limit A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...

Durga Das Basu Durga Das Basu (1910–1997) was an Indian jurist and lawyer. He wrote the ''Commentary on the Constitution of India'' and ''Casebook on the Indian Constitutional Law''. The former is one of the most important textbooks in social sciences and le ...

. ''Introduction to the Constitution of India''. 1960. 20th Edition, 2011 Reprint. pp. 241, 245. LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa Nagpur. . Note: although the text talks about Indian state governments in general, it applies to the specific case of Madhya Pradesh as well. Following Madhya Pradesh's reorganisation on 1 November 1956, 18 people served as its chief minister. Twelve of these belonged to the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

, including the inaugural officeholder

Ravishankar Shukla Ravishankar Shukla (2 August 1877 — 31 December 1956) was a leader of the Indian National Congress, Indian independence movement activist, the Premier of the Central Provinces and Berar from 27 April 1946 to 25 January 1950, first Chief Minist ...

. The first non-Congress chief minister was

Govind Narayan Singh Govind Narayan Singh (25 July 1920 – 10 May 2005), was an Indian politician. He was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from July 30, 1967 to March 12, 1969. He was also Governor of Bihar state from February 26, 1988 to January 24, 1989. Poli ...

who defected from the party and lead a

Samyukta Vidhayak Dal ''Samyukta Vidhayak Dal'' was coalition of parties formed in several north Indian states after the 1967 assembly elections, made up of the Bharatiya Kranti Dal, the Samyukta Socialist Party, the Praja Socialist Party and the Jana Sangh. The coal ...

government from 1967 to 1969.

Digvijaya Singh Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He is Ex-General Secretary of the Indian National Congress party's All India Congress Committee. Previously, he had served as the ...

of the Congress became the first officeholder to serve two full five-year terms. He was succeeded by

Uma Bharti Uma Bharti (born 3 May 1959) is an Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. She became involved with the Bharatiya Janata Party at a young age, unsuccessfully contesting her first parliamentary elections in 1984. In 1989, s ...

of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) 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 Narendra Modi ...

, Madhya Pradesh's only woman chief minister.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959), is an Indian politician and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the 17th and current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, having been elected to the same position 3 times in the past, and a Member ...

of the

is the longest-serving and current incumbent.

Pre-Cursor States

Vindhya Pradesh (1948-1956)

In 1948, the eastern regions of

Central India Agency The Central India Agency was created in 1854, by amalgamating the Western Malwa Agency with other smaller political offices which formerly reported to the Governor-General of India. The agency was overseen by a political agent who maintained ...

, became the Union of Baghelkhand and Bundelkhand States later renamed to

Vindhya Pradesh Vindhya Pradesh was a former state of India. It occupied an area of 23,603 sq. miles. It was created in 1948 as Union of Baghelkhand and Bundelkhand States, shortly after Indian independence, from the territories of the princely states in the e ...

in 1952. It was admitted into the union as a " Part B" state.

Madhya Bharat (1948-1956)

In 1948, the western regions of

and the Gwalior and Indore residencies, became the new state of

Madhya Bharat Madhya Bharat, also known as Malwa Union, was an Indian state in west-central India, created on 28 May 1948 from twenty-five princely states which until 1947 had been part of the Central India Agency, with Jiwajirao Scindia as its Rajpramukh. ...

. It was admitted into the union as a " Part B" state.

Bhopal State (1949-1956)

On 30 April 1949, Sir Hamidullah Khan, the

Nawab of Bhopal The Nawabs of Bhopal were the Muslim rulers of Bhopal, now part of Madhya Pradesh, India. The nawabs first ruled under the Mughal Empire from 1707 to 1737, under the Maratha Empire from 1737 to 1818, then under British rule from 1818 to 1947, an ...

signed an Instrument of Accession to the

Dominion of India The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India,* Quote: “The first collective use (of the word "dominion") occurred at the Colonial Conference (April to May 1907) when the title was conferred upon Canada and Australia. New Zealand and N ...

. The state of Bhopal was taken over by the Union Government on 1 June 1949 and was declared a " Part C" state.

List of Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh

After the independence of India, the state of

was created in 1950 from the

Central Provinces and Berar The Central Provinces and Berar was a province of British India and later the Dominion of India which existed from 1903 to 1950. It was formed by the merger of the Central Provinces with the province of Berar, which was territory leased by the B ...

and the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

Makrai Makrai is a village in the Harda district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The village was the headquarters of the Makrai princely state during the British Raj. History According to legend the Makrai princely state was established in 1663 by Raj G ...

with

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nag ...

as the capital of the state. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 merged the states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, and Bhopal were merged into Madhya Pradesh and the

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

-speaking southern region

Vidarbha Vidarbha (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, �id̪əɾbʱə is a geographical region in the east of the Indian state of Maharashtra and a Proposed states and union territories of India#Maharashtra, proposed state of central India, comprising th ...

, which included Nagpur, was ceded to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. In November 2000, as part of the Madhya Pradesh Reorganization Act the southeastern portion of the state was split off to form the new state of

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

Timeline

Living former Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh

As of , there are three Living former chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh: File:Kamal Nath 2012.jpg,

Kamal Nath Kamal Nath (born 18 November 1946) is an Indian politician who served as the 18th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for approximately 15 months and resigned after a political crisis. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Legi ...

(2018–2020)
File:Uma Bharati in 2014.jpg,

(2003-2004)
File:Digvijaya Singh (cropped).jpg,

(1993–2003)
The most recent death of a former chief minister was that of

Motilal Vora Motilal Vora (20 December 1928 – 21 December 2020) was an Indian politician belonging to the Indian National Congress (INC). He served as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (1985–1988; 1989). He was born in Nimbi Jodha, Jodhpur State, British ...

on 21 December 2020 aged 92.

Footnotes

References

External links

Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh
{{Current Indian chief ministers

Chief Ministers