India's most famous woman politician, Indira Gandhi, was, of course, never a Chief Minister, but 18 women have held the top post in the states since Independence, many with distinction and setting records in the process.

Long before Rekha Gupta became Chief Minister of Delhi, Sucheta Kripalani, Dr J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee, Uma Bharti, Nandini Satpathy, and Mehbooba Mufti made their mark among rulers of their states, many of them turning tables on their men opponents in politics.

Many of these women have been colourful figures, known as much for their persona as for their political zeal and talent.

Several of them tested the limits of Constitutional propriety. Some tested the law in making their political reputation outside state assemblies before assuming office.

Sheila Dikshit of Delhi recorded a straight run of 15 years and 25 days, perhaps the longest term of them all before she was unseated by the Aam Admi Party under the then charismatic Anil Kejriwal, riding a wave of public anger against apparent corruption.

Freedom fighter Sucheta Kripalani, born in 1908, was the country's first woman chief minister, ascending to the office in Uttar Pradesh on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, October 2, 1963, governing India's most populous province for three years and 162 days.

Sucheta's was an anxious stay in office, with every politician watching how she would fare, and many Congressmen trying to pull her down, despite her reputation during the freedom struggle, and her status as the wife of Acharya Kripalani, the great socialist leader.

Nandini Satpathy, born in 1931, became the second woman chief minister of the country, ruling Orissa from June 14, 1972, for four years and 185 days, earning the reputation of being an "iron Lady." She initiated several development programmes in the underdeveloped eastern state. She was Indira Gandhi's information minister and was once deemed close to her, but she became disillusioned during the emergency and broke away with Jagjivan Ram and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna.

Goa saw the country's third woman chief minister, Shashikala Kakodkar, born in 1935, heading a Maharashtra Gomantak Party government beginning August 12, 1973, and staying in office for five years and 220 days. Shashikala's term in Goa had its ups and downs and moments in her personal life. But there has been no major woman politician in India's smallest state after her.

India's fourth chief minister has been all but forgotten in her troubled state of Assam, which saw Anwara Taimur assume office for 206 days from December 6 1981, at the head of a Congress government. Her government remained shaky and ended with a sputter.

Sadness marked the very brief stint of the fifth chief minister, VN Janaki Ramachandran, who has the widow, but non-political heir, of the late chief minister MG Ramachandran. She succeeded her husband on January 7, 1988, but was out of office within 23 days.

But it was the second woman in MGR's life who really made a splash in Indian politics. Dr J Jayalalithaa, born in independent India in 1948, she assumed office on June 24, 1991, and ruled for a total of 14 years and 124 days in five different spurts. A fit actress and consummate dancer, she was a very colourful person in her personal life and had an equally colourful term in office.

She was a people's person with a mass following as behove a star. For the people of Tamil Nadu, it was during her term that the state saw mass public housing, education for the girl child, and a series of development projects whose impact can be seen long after her passing. She took over the party from MGR and made her All India Anna DMK party a force in state politics and in moving what was a populist anti-caste movement into a development-oriented political party.

The darkest moments in Tamil Nadu were when she arrested her rival DMK leader M Karunanidhi and his senior party colleagues. Her death under controversial circumstances was a sad end to a story as charismatic as any one of her films.

The next chief minister was perhaps even more colourful. Uttar Pradesh saw Kumari Mayawati assume office on June 13, 1997, as India's seventh woman chief minister. She would rule the state for seven years and five days in four different spurts.

But the fourth term and final term, which began on May 13, 2007, saw five years of Mayawati in Office, changing the norms of governance and the landscape of the state capital, Lucknow, which now boasts of her own statue as of her mentor Kanshi Ram, and elephant icons in red sandstone along a memorial to Dalit resilience.

Mayawati, of course, empowered the Dalit communities, particularly her own community, and made them a strong political force in her own state and across the country. She empowered them in higher offices in the state police forces, which had been denied them all these decades, and put the fear of the laws into powerful caste groups who had the state in their grip till then. She empowered them in a way that the founder of her party, Kanshi Ram, perhaps had not even envisioned when he launched a Dalit on a political route that continues today, fulfilling Dr BR Ambedkar's dream of a Dalit possibly ruling the country as prime minister someday.

Mayawati, too, dreamt of being prime minister, but her coalition politics eventually failed, and she remains under the threat of arrest on corruption charges. She has been now reduced to quite a spent force.

It was a troubled state of Punjab and Sikh politics at its usual turbulence when Rajinder Kaur Bhattal became chief minister on November 21, 1996, to rule for a listless 83 days.

Rabri Devi of Bihar became a chief minister by accident or by default. She came to power on July 25, 1997, when her husband, Laloo Yadav, was found guilty of corruption in what is known as the "chara ghotala" (Fodder Scam).

She's a political non-entity, a housewife with a brood of nine children, and she would have been the first to admit it. But three stretches in power saw her grow in confidence and politics, and by the time her third term ended on March 6, 2005, a total of seven years and 190 days, she could be said to have become as much a politician as any. She managed home, children and occasional press conferences, keeping her husband's political flame intact.

Rabri Devi will not be known for any major law or public policy, but she remains a tall politician who began as a "dumb" alter ego of her husband and grew into a person of her own. She remains a subject of much respect, not only in her state but in the country.

The late Sushma Swaraj, a fine parliamentarian and later India's long-term foreign minister, will see political biography also record that she was the 10th woman chief minister, governing Delhi for a short 52 days as a nominee of the Bharatiya Janata party.

Sushma Swaraj was succeeded by the most successful woman chief minister the country has ever known — Sheila Dikshit. A cosmopolitan politician educated at Miranda House of Delhi University and the wife of an IAS officer, she became chief Minister on December 3, 1998. She ruled for 15 years and 25 days till December 28, 2013, when she was defeated by the anti-corruption movement of the Aam Aadmi Party and its charismatic young leader, the Revenue Service officer Arvind Kejriwal.

The currently developed face of Delhi, with this extended network of Metro trains, its hundreds of flyovers, and major development projects, is a product of Sheila's zeal and her excellent initiative acumen. She found support from the national leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh. In fact, with her death, a period of great decline began for the Congress party in the national capital territory of Delhi.

The 11th chief minister also had a charismatic, tumultuous, controversial political career. Uma Bharti, a sannyasin or sadhvi, became chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 8, 2003.

The second Lodh-Rajput after Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh to be in such a high office, Uma was a prominent figure in the movement of Ram Mandir and was present when the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992. Her photograph embracing the senior leader, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, is published routinely every time there is a mention of the demolition of the mosque.

However, Uma Bharti's tenure in Madhya Pradesh did not see anything dramatic. It lasted a year and 259 days.

Vasundhara Raje, a princess of the Scindia family of Gwalior, became a chief minister of neighbouring Rajasthan, her home by marriage. She won the collective strength of the Jats and the Rajputs in Rajasthan with two stints in office and for a massive total of 10 years and nine days. Her first was from December 2003 to 2008, and the second from 2013 to 2018.

While her rule may not have led to significant development in impoverished Rajasthan, she is a consummate politician who continues to defy the central leadership of her party and ruled despite strong opposition, not so much from the Congress party, which was in the opposition, but from her own party men.

Vasundhara is still not a spent force in Rajasthan politics and continues to wait for possibly a third term. Time alone will tell.

India's next woman chief minister, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, is a former Youth Congress leader, consummate street fighter, and politician. West Bengal politics was exceptionally violent in those times, and Mamta and her colleagues fought as much in the state assembly as on the streets of Calcutta.

Mamata Banerjee, not given sufficient recognition, broke from the Congress and set up her own party, Trinamool Congress Party, TMC, which she bravely led to power on May 20, 2011, when she became chief minister.

Thirteen years and several months later, Mamata Banerjee remains a force in state politics as much as in national politics. She has been the source of development in Bengal after long years under Marxist rule. She has also been a disruptionist, both in state politics and in central politics.

Mamata tied up with the NDA and was, in fact, a member of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government, successfully holding the Railways ministry, but she is also a bitter critic of the BJP.

As a member of a non-BJP group of parties, Mamta maintains a steady but individual course in national politics. The INDIA coalition can never be sure if she's with them, and every whisper of her meeting with anybody in the central government immediately sets off a flutter of rumours that she is likely to upset the applecart of the Congress and its young leader, Rahul Gandhi.

Anandiben Patel was the 15th chief minister and a singularly colourless one from May 22, 2014, to August 7, 2016, a matter of two years and 77 days. She had succeeded the charismatic Narendra Bhai Modi. After his long tenure, she suffered grievously in comparison.

Mehbooba Mufti of Kashmir cannot be called colourful, but she has been a very visible presence in India's politics in the northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was the united state of Jammu and Kashmir, which she ruled for two years and 76 days from April 4, 2016, till June 19, 2018. Her role in the politics of Kashmir is yet to be fully assessed, other than the fact that in a patriarchal state, she broke new ground for women politicians.

Atishi, the daughter of 2 professors, is a scholar herself but became an accidental chief minister of Delhi on September 21, 2024. She succeeded the jailed Arvind Kejriwal, and her term ended with the stunning debacle of the Aam Admi Party on February 20, 2025.

The non-rule of her mentor, who had taken the oath of office as chief minister but never governed from the chair of the chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, remains the only chief minister in India to have never handled a single ministry or signed a single file.

Rekha Gupta, elected as Delhi's second BJP woman chief minister this week, has yet to show her political acumen. It was predicted that after AAP's Atishi, the BJP would choose a woman, perhaps to recall the warmth with which Sushma Swaraj had been received in office. Rekha will feel the pressure of great expectations.