Bhajan Lal Sharma

What they do

• Leads the state Council of Ministers and, by advising the Governor, decides who becomes a minister and which portfolio each minister gets (including reshuffles).
• Chairs the state Cabinet and sets the government's overall policy agenda, priorities, and legislative programme.
• State List subjects (Seventh Schedule, List II): police and public order, prisons, public health and hospitals, agriculture, land, water supply and irrigation, local government (panchayats and municipalities), and state roads — plus Concurrent List subjects like education and electricity.
• Prepares and steers the annual state Budget and manages state taxes and finances (e.g., state excise, stamp duty, and state VAT on fuel) through the Assembly.
• Directs the state bureaucracy — the Chief Secretary, department secretaries, and district administration — including transfers and postings of state civil servants.
• Advises the Governor on key appointments (such as the Advocate General and members of the State Public Service Commission) and can recommend dissolution of the Assembly.
• Runs whichever departments the CM personally keeps — this varies by state, but often includes Home, General Administration, and Finance.
• Represents the state to the Union government and in inter-governmental forums such as the NITI Aayog Governing Council and the Inter-State Council.
• Leads the state's disaster response and relief, typically as chairperson of the State Disaster Management Authority.
• Implements Union laws, centrally sponsored schemes, and state laws within the territory of the state.

Not their job — ask instead

• National subjects — defence, foreign affairs, railways, national highways, income tax, and currency. These are Union List subjects handled by the Union Government, Parliament, and the relevant Union Minister, not the state CM.
• Making laws unconstitutional or deciding court cases — that is the judiciary (High Court and Supreme Court). The CM cannot overturn a court order.
• Running elections and enforcing the Model Code of Conduct — done by the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission, which are independent of the CM.
• Petrol and diesel base prices, GST rates, and interest rates — set largely by the Union Government, the GST Council, and the RBI. The CM only controls state-level taxes such as fuel VAT and state excise.
• Appointing or removing the Governor — the Governor is appointed by the President on the Union Government's advice, not by the CM.
• Policing and public order in Delhi and similar arrangements — in the National Capital Territory of Delhi (and, likewise, in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir) these stay with the Centre through the Lieutenant Governor, not the elected CM; powers differ across UTs.
• Day-to-day local civic delivery like garbage collection, local water lines, and neighbourhood potholes — delivered by municipal corporations and panchayats under their elected mayors and councillors, though the state government funds and oversees them.

What they do

• Debating and voting on state bills and laws in the Legislative Assembly, and proposing amendments.
• The subjects a state can legislate on — the State List and the shared Concurrent List — e.g. police and public order, prisons, public health and hospitals, school education, agriculture and land, water, local government, and roads and buildings, plus state taxes (on Concurrent subjects like education, a central law wins if the two clash).
• Passing the state budget and approving how the state taxes and spends public money (money bills start in the Assembly).
• Deciding who governs the state — the Assembly's majority decides who becomes Chief Minister (the Governor formally appoints whoever can hold the Assembly's confidence), and MLAs can move, or must face, confidence and no-confidence motions.
• Recommending local development works through the MLA-LAD constituency fund, where the state runs one (the MLA recommends; district officials execute).
• Parliamentary tools to question the executive: Question Hour, calling-attention motions, adjournment/short-duration debates, resolutions, and private member's bills.
• Membership and scrutiny work on Assembly committees such as Public Accounts, Estimates, and subject committees.
• Raising constituency grievances and demands directly with ministers, the district administration, and departments.
• Acting as part of electoral colleges: elected MLAs help elect the President of India (Article 54) and elect the state's Rajya Sabha members (Article 80); in states with a second house they also elect some Legislative Council members.
• Helping decide some changes to the Constitution — for certain amendments that affect the states' powers, the state Assembly must approve (ratify) them (Article 368).
• In states that have two houses, taking part in how the Assembly and the Legislative Council work together on laws — though the Assembly has the final say (Article 197).
• If appointed a Minister/CM: exercising executive powers over the assigned department(s) and the state administration.

Not their job — ask instead

• National / Union subjects — defence, foreign affairs, railways, national highways, income tax, currency, telecom, and citizenship. Ask your Member of Parliament (MP) and the Union government; these are decided in Parliament, not the state Assembly.
• Everyday city/village civic services — garbage collection, street lights, local drains, ward roads, and property tax within a municipal or panchayat area. These belong to your Municipal Corporator/Councillor or Panchayat member and the Mayor/Sarpanch and the local body, not the MLA.
• Actually executing works and running government offices — an ordinary MLA only recommends and demands. Delivery is done by the bureaucracy: the District Collector/Magistrate (called Deputy Commissioner in some states) and department officers, answerable through the government, not directly to the MLA.
• Court cases, verdicts, bail, and interpreting the law — that is the judiciary (courts), which is independent of legislators.
• Petrol/diesel pump prices, GST rates, and bank interest rates are not set by one MLA. Fuel prices mostly follow global crude-oil costs plus central excise duty and state VAT; GST rates are fixed jointly by the Union and all the states together in the GST Council; interest rates are set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Your state government does set its own VAT on fuel, but that is a government and budget decision, not something a single MLA controls.
• Giving someone a government job or transferring an official — recruitment is done by public service commissions and recruitment boards on merit; postings are administrative decisions, and pressuring for them can itself be misconduct.
• Ground-level policing and law-and-order enforcement decisions — handled by the police and the state Home department (an MLA can raise concerns but does not command the police unless serving as the relevant minister).