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.
He is only behind the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. According to a report by PTI, officials suggested that Modi's latest milestone comes after he completes another day in office on July 25, overtaking Gandhi's unbroken term of 4,077 days that lasted from January 24, 1966, to March 24, 1977.
PM Modi (74) is also the longest-serving prime minister who is not from Congress. The First PM born after independence, he entered the office on May 26, 2014. Last year in June, he was sworn in for the third consecutive term.
"Modi is the only leader in India, among all PMs and CMs, to win six consecutive elections as the leader of a party -- in Gujarat assembly polls in 2002, 2007 and 2012, and in the national elections in 2014, 2019, and 2024," an official was quoted as saying by PTI.
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.
Modi was also the longest-serving chief minister of Gujarat, having been in office from 2001 to 2014. He led the BJP to six consecutive electoral victories, as Gujarat CM in 2002, 2007 and 2012.
Born into a modest family in Vadnagar, Gujarat, Narendra Modi helped his father sell tea at a railway station before rising through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and later the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In a post on X, the BJP said this marks a single, uninterrupted tenure as Prime Minister — a rare and remarkable achievement in Indian democracy.
"But this is just one milestone in PM Modi’s nearly 24-year journey as the head of a democratically elected government at the state and central level," the post read while listing out the record-breaking highlights from his tenure.
The BJP said that PM Modi's journey is defined by "stability, consistency, and public trust. Truly, a leader of historic proportions".
In 2014, the BJP came to power at the Centre with a 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 allies.
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