From time to time, a Chief Minister may keep one or more portfolios under his charge. Such departments attain special importance in the government.

The C.M’s leadership provides them with influence, prestige, power and added responsibility. No hard and fast rule regarding the number of portfolios a C.M. can or should keep has been stipulated. Herein lays the question of variations in the individual capacity of a C.M. in managing public affairs.

At the same time, it would be desirable for a C.M. to have, under his direct control only as many departments as he can efficiently manage. In administering these departments, the C.M.’s administrative role gains significance. In order to explain the point, a reference may be made to the case of Rajasthan.

Though there has been no uniformity in the pattern of C.M.’s portfolios in Rajasthan all the C.Ms of the state, since 1949, have kept the Department of General Administration and Personnel (earlier known as Appointments) with themselves besides, the Planning Department has also been with the Chief Minister intermittently. There have also been occasions when the Chief Minister has held the portfolio of the Finance Minister and presented the annual budget in the legislative assembly.

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In addition, the C.M. may take under his direct charge departments which have situational significance. For instance, due to acute shortage of power in the state, the then C.M., Mohan Lai Sukhadia, took over the charge of the Power Department in June, 1968. Barkatullah Khan took over the Waqf and Linguistic Minorities Department in July, 1971 to sort out the problems of the Muslim community. Moreover, since the state of Rajasthan is backward industrially, a good number of the C.Ms has kept the Industries Department with them from time to time.

It has been observed that whenever a minister leaves the Council of Ministers for some reason, the Chief Minister may keep with himself one or all of the portfolios of the outgoing minister until the next Cabinet reshuffle take place. In Rajasthan, there have been occasions, though rare, when a Chief Minister had the direct charge of more than a dozen departments and, yet, he performed his role smoothly. The principle of span of control, though violated prima facie, gets interpreted in a new light when a chief executive is supported by knowledgeable and experienced higher level administrators in most of the units being managed and controlled.

When the Chief Minister acts as the political head of a department, his powers and functions are exercised on the same pattern as are adopted by other ministers in regard to their respective departments

It may be pointed out that, for all departments of the state government, there are standing orders approved by the respective ministers. Specifications are made in these orders on the levels at which particular matters or cases are to be dealt with and disposed of. Even the C.M.’s powers in various matters are well-defined. Moreover, mention should also be made of cases, the final disposal of which could be made only at the level of the Cabinet.