A Chief Minister is the elected head of government of a sub-national (e.g. constituent federal) state, provinces of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, notably a state (and sometimes a union territory) of India, a territory of Australia or a British Overseas Territory that has attained self-government. It is also used as the English version of the title given to the heads of governments of the Malay states without a monarchy.

The title is also used in the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man (since 1986), in Guernsey (since 2004), and in Jersey (since 2005).

In Malaysia, it is used to refer to the heads of government, called in their Malay language term Ketua Menteri (literally Chief Minister), of the Malaysian states without a sultan, i.e., Malacca, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak, while the Malay language term Menteri Besar (literally Great Minister) is used in other states with a monarch.

By analogy the term is often applied to various other high ministerial offices, e.g. in a princely state before or during the British raj.

Nitish Kumār (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician who has been a Union Minister and is the Chief Minister of Bihar, an eastern state of India, since 2005. He belongs to the Janata Dal (United) party. As Chief Minister, he gained popularity by initiating a series of developmental and constructive activities including building of long-delayed bridges, re-laying roads that had ceased to exist, appointing over 100,000 school teachers, ensuring that doctors worked in primary health centers, and keeping crime in check.

Nitish Kumār was born in Kalyanbigha, Bihar to Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh and Parmeshwari Devi. His father was a freedom fighter and was close to the great Gandhian Bihar Vibhuti Anugrah Narayan Sinha, one of the founders of modern Bihar. His nickname is 'Munna'. He is a teetotaler, does not smoke, and is a frugal eater.

He has a degree in electrical engineering from the Bihar College of Engineering, Patna now NIT Patna. He joined the Bihar State Electricity Board, but almost halfheartedly, and later moved into politics.

Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: નરેન્દ્ર મોદી; born 17 September 1950) is the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. Born in a middle class family in Vadnagar, he was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife Heeraben. He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood also having interest in politics since adolescence. He holds a master's degree in political science. In 1998, he was chosen by L. K. Advani, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to direct the election campaign in Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh.

He became Chief Minister of Gujarat in October 2001, promoted to the office at a time when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel had resigned, following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections. His tenure as chief minister of Gujarat began on 7 October 2001, and he is the longest serving Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In July 2007 he became the longest serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history when he had been in power for 2063 days continuously. He was elected again for a third term on 23 December 2007 in the state elections, which he had cast as a "referendum on his rule".

Sheila Dikshit (Hindi: शीला दीक्षित, born 31 March 1938) is an Indian politician who has been the Chief Minister of Delhi since 1998. She is from the Indian National Congress. Dikshit was sworn in as the Chief Minister for a third consecutive term of the Government of Delhi state in January 2009 after pulling a victory in November 2008 state elections. She is the second woman Chief Minister of Delhi and represents the New Delhi Constituency in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi.

Dikshit holds a Master of Arts degree. She received her education in New Delhi, and later Miranda House, University of Delhi. She is also the recipient of Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, from the University of Delhi. She was married into the family of Shri Umashankar Dikshit, a noted independence activist and a former Governor and Union Cabinet Minister (in U.P. Vill. Ugu Distt. Unnao). Her late husband Vinod Dikshit was a member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). She has two children, son Sandeep Dikshit, who is a member of parliament from East Delhi for Congress and daughter Latika Syed.

Omar Abdullah (Hindi: उमर अब्दुल्लाह, Urdu: عمر عبدالله), born 10 March 1970, is an Indian Kashmiri politician and the scion of one of the state's most prominent political family, the Abdullah family who became the 11th and the youngest Chief Minister of the northern Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, after forming a government in coalition with the Congress party, on January 5, 2009.

He was a member of 14th Lok Sabha, representing Srinagar constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, India. He was a Union Minister of State for External affairs in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government, from July 23, 2001 to December 23, 2002. He resigned from NDA government in October 2002 to concentrate on party work.

Omar joined politics in 1998, as a Lok Sabha member, a feat he repeated in subsequent three elections and also remained a Union minister; he took on the mantle of National Conference from his father in 2002, though he lost his own seat of Ganderbal during the 2002 state assembly elections, and so did his party, the political mandate; four years later, he contested once again from the same seat and won in the 2008 Kashmir Elections.