Modi, 74, the first prime minister born in Independent India, was sworn-in for the third consecutive term in June last year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday become India’s second-longest serving premier in consecutive terms, completing 4,078 straight days in office, surpassing Indira Gandhi’s uninterrupted tenure between 1964 and 1977, and is only behind the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru, a person aware of the matter said on Thursday.
Modi, 74, the first prime minister born in Independent India, was sworn-in for the third consecutive term in June last year, having first entered the top office on May 26, 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader is also the longest-serving PM from a non-Congress party.
On July 25, PM Modi will complete 4,078 days in office in three straight terms. “On this day, he (Modi) will become the second longest consecutive serving PM of India, surpassing Indira Gandhi, who was the PM consecutively for 4,077 days, from January 24, 1966 till March 24, 1977,” a person aware of the matter said.
Indira Gandhi had also served as the PM from January 14, 1980 until her assassination on October 31, 1984. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru remains the longest-serving PM of India, having been in the office for 16 years and 286 days from August 15, 1947 till May 27, 1964.
Before becoming the PM, Modi was the longest-serving chief minister of Gujarat, having been in office from 2001 to 2014.
“He is the first and only non-Congress PM to complete at least two full terms as Prime Minister and to get re-elected thrice…He is also the first and only non-Congress leader to secure a majority on his own in a Lok Sabha election,” the person quoted above said.
In 2014, the BJP stormed to power at the Centre with a brute majority of 272 seats, with Modi as the party’s PM face. Five years later, the party improved its tally, winning 303 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. Although the BJP fell short of reaching the half-way mark in 2024, it emerged as the single largest party and formed the government for a third straight term with support of its NDA partners.
“He is the first sitting Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi (in 1971) to get re-elected with a majority and the only Prime Minister, apart from Jawaharlal Nehru, to win three consecutive elections as leader of a party,” the person added.
The article originally appeared on Hindustan Times
