With 2,258 days in office, Amit Shah has become the longest-serving Union Minister of Home Affairs on Tuesday. He assumed the office on May 30, 2019.Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday praised union minister Shah for becoming the longest-serving home minister during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Parliamentary meeting.
In his address to the National Democratic Alliance’s parliamentary party group, PM Modi noted that Amit Shah has become the longest serving Home Minister, overtaking Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L. K. Advani, a co-founder of the group in 1998. “It is just the beginning,” he said, adding that there was a long way to go.The record for the longest-serving home minister was held by Congress leader Govind Ballabh Pant and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani.While Advani held the position for 2,256 days (from March 19, 1998, to May 22, 2004), Govind Ballabh Pant served as home minister from January 10, 1955, to March 7, 1961, totalling 6 years and 56 days.
The milestone in Home minister Shah's tenure comes on August 5, the date he announced the abrogation of Article 370 in Parliament in 2019, ending the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.From the abrogation of Article 370 to strenghtening internal security, completely overhauling criminal laws and from setting a March 2026 deadline to eliminate the Naxal menace to ensuring the surrender of 10,000 militants in the Northeast, Amit Shah has achieved several milestones in his over six-year tenure as the Union Home Minister, the longest in history.
He has been the pivotal force of Prime Minister Modi's government, giving new directions to the Ministry of Home Affairs in charting its course in maintaining internal security and peace across the country.It was Shah who piloted three criminal laws -- the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam -- which replaced the colonial era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, respectively. The new laws came into effect on July 1, 2024.
It was during Shah's tenure that Parliament enacted the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which envisages giving Indian nationality to persecuted minorities -- Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Christian and Parsi -- coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.As a home minister, he has set a March 31, 2026, deadline to end the problem of Naxals and has achieved great success so far by freeing large areas from the clutches of the red ultras.
Shah has banned all constituents of the Jammu and Kashmir-based separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference and many of its leaders are now languishing in jail for suspected terror links.He has also launched a campaign against narcotics and their trade, with over 10 lakh kg of contraband, with a street value of Rs 11,961 crore, that was seized during a special drive being destroyed.In the Northeast, Shah has signed 12 peace agreements with different insurgent groups, thus ensuring the surrender of over 10,000 militants with arms and ammunition.
Recognised for his political acumen and strategic prowess, the senior BJP leader has played a pivotal role in the phenomenal growth of the saffron party that helped it to cross the 300-seat mark in the 2019 Lok Sabha election when he was the party's national president.
Shah is a person dedicated to the saffron ideology and is often described by admirers as a modern-day Chanakya. He made history by becoming the youngest president of the Bharatiya Janata Party at 49 in 2014, later assuming office as one of the youngest Union Home Ministers at 54 in 2019.
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