Not a mandated post, but the trend of appointing deputy CMs records a rise

NEW DELHI: India currently has 28 states and three union territories (UTs) with a state legislature. Before the imposition of President's Rule in Manipur, there were 31 chief ministers and 26 deputy chief ministers in the country.

- Nishant Ranjan

The post of a deputy chief minister is not constitutionally mandated unlike the council of ministers and appointing one is a purely political decision to create one or more than one second among equals (the first being the chief minister) in the state executive.

Has the trend of appointing deputy chief ministers become stronger over the years? Are deputy chief ministers more likely in alliance governments? Are some parties more likely to appoint deputy chief ministers than others? Is balancing caste calculus the basic motive behind appointing a deputy chief minister?

To answer these questions, HT built a dataset of all deputy chief ministers in India since 1952. This database has been prepared by using various sources including official and unofficial information on the internet. The latter has been cross-verified from multiple sources to maintain accuracy. This is the third comprehensive database prepared by HT's data journalism team; the first and second were a database of India's chief ministers and the Council of Ministers of the Union government. The deputy chief minister database, like the other two databases, tracks people over a time continuum.