Hailed as a modern-day 'Chanakya', BJP's Amit Shah is now India's longest serving Union Home Minister

New Delhi: From the abrogation of Article 370 to 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.

Known as the second most influential figure in the country after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah has completed 2,258 days in office, surpassing L K Advani's 2,256 days as Union Home Minister.

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.

At the NDA parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, the Prime Minister praised the Home Minister and noted that Shah has become the longest-serving incumbent in the MHA.

With 2,258 days in office, Shah has now surpassed Advani's tenure of 2,256 days as home minister. Before Shah and Advani, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's first home minister, served for 1,218 days, sources said.

Sixty-year-old Shah's tenure has been marked by several historic decisions, including the abrogation of Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the crackdown on terrorist and separatist organisations in Jammu and Kashmir and the strengthening of internal security.

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.

Born into a prominent Gujarati family in Mumbai in 1964, Shah's journey began at the age of 16 when he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a 'swayamsevak' in 1980, swiftly immersing himself in the activities of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

Before coming to national politics, Shah was the home minister of Gujarat when Modi was the chief minister. Shah won the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency for the first time in 2019 and subsequently took charge as the Union Home Minister.

He got elected to the Lok Sabha in 2024 again and took oath as Union Home Minister for the second time that year.