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.
Top left:
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first and the longest-serving prime minister in Indian history.
Top center:
Indira Gandhi was the first and only woman to serve as prime minister.
Bottom left:
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first non-Congress prime minister to complete a full 5 year term.
Bottom center:
Manmohan Singh was the first prime minister from a minority religion.
Bottom right:
Narendra Modi is the only prime minister to be born in independent India and is the longest-serving non-Congress prime minister. He is also the second prime minister after
Nehru to be re-elected for three consecutive full terms in office.
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 electedevery 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.[a]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.[21]
^Pillay, Anashri (2019), "The Constitution of the Republic of India", in Masterman, Roger; Schütze, Robert (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146–147,
doi:
10.1017/9781316716731,
ISBN978-1-107-16781-0,
LCCN2019019723,
S2CID219881288, The head of government is the Prime Minister.
^Dam, Shubhankar (2016), "Executive", in Choudhry, Sujit; Khosla, Madhav; Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 307,
ISBN978-0-19-870489-8, The Prime Minister is the head of government.
^Pillay, Anashri (2019), "The Constitution of the Republic of India", in Masterman, Roger; Schütze, Robert (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146–147,
doi:
10.1017/9781316716731,
ISBN978-1-107-16781-0,
LCCN2019019723,
S2CID219881288, An elected President is the nominal head of state but exercises little power.
^Majeed, Akhtar (2005), "Republic of India", in Kincaid, John; Tarr, G. Alan (eds.), Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, A Global Dialogue on Federalism, Volume I, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press for Forum of Federation and International Association of Centers for Federal Studies, pp. 180–207, 185,
ISBN0-7735-2849-0, ...The president is the constitutional head. (p. 185)
^Dam, Shubhankar (2016), "Executive", in Choudhry, Sujit; Khosla, Madhav; Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 307,
ISBN978-0-19-870489-8, The President is the head of the Union of India
^
abSingh, Nirvikar (2018), "Holding India Together: The Role of Institutions of Federalism", in Mishra, Ajit; Ray, Tridip (eds.), Markets, Governance, and Institutions: In the Process of Economic Development, Oxford University Press, pp. 300–323, 306,
ISBN978-0-19-881255-5
^Majeed, Akhtar (2005), "Republic of India", in Kincaid, John; Tarr, G. Alan (eds.), Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, A Global Dialogue on Federalism, Volume I, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press for Forum of Federation and International Association of Centers for Federal Studies, pp. 180–207, 185,
ISBN0-7735-2849-0, ...the executive authority is vested in the prime minister and in their Council of Ministers. (p. 185)
^Dam, Shubhankar (2016), "Executive", in Choudhry, Sujit; Khosla, Madhav; Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 307,
ISBN978-0-19-870489-8, Executive power, ordinarily, is exercised by Prime Minister.
^Pillay, Anashri (2019), "The Constitution of the Republic of India", in Masterman, Roger; Schütze, Robert (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146–147,
doi:
10.1017/9781316716731,
ISBN978-1-107-16781-0,
LCCN2019019723,
S2CID219881288, ... 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.
^Dam, Shubhankar (2016), "Executive", in Choudhry, Sujit; Khosla, Madhav; Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 307,
ISBN978-0-19-870489-8, Along with his or her cabinet, the Prime Minister is responsible to the Lower House of Parliament.
^Majeed, Akhtar (2005), "Republic of India", in Kincaid, John; Tarr, G. Alan (eds.), Constitutional Origins, Structure, and Change in Federal Countries, A Global Dialogue on Federalism, Volume I, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press for Forum of Federation and International Association of Centers for Federal Studies, pp. 180–207, 185,
ISBN0-7735-2849-0, ...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)