As Prime Minister Narendra Modi became India’s longest-serving elected leader on Wednesday, and BJP MP Raghav Chadha noted the feat by comparing him to the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Modi completed 4,399 consecutive days in office on June 10, surpassing Nehru’s record of 4,398 days as an elected prime minister. While congratulating Modi, Chadha focused on what he described as the importance of securing three consecutive states in a vastly different political era.
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Compare Raghav Chadha Modi and Nehru
Drawing a comparison with Nehru’s tenure, Chadha said the two leaders were operating in completely different political environments. According to him, Nehru led India during the formative decades of the republic when the Congress Party enjoyed overwhelming dominance and faced a relatively fragmented opposition.
“Pandit Nehru secured his tenure in the formative decades of the republic, an era of single-party dominance in which the Congress outmaneuvered a young and fragmented opposition,” Chadha wrote.
He contrasted this with what he described as today’s “more” competitive political landscape, which sees coalition politics, strong regional parties and intense electoral contests.
“Narendra Modi has earned his place in a much more demanding democracy: an era of alliances, strong regional powers and fierce multi-party competition,” Chadha said.
The BJP leader noted that Modi got absolute majority for the BJP in 2014 and 2019, the first majority for a single party at the Center since 1984, before he led the BJP. NDA to victory again in 2024.
“Winning the confidence of a hotly contested nation, mandate by mandate, is by all accounts the most difficult accomplishment,” Chadha wrote.
“The same leader has been entrusted with the charge of the nation: over and over again. 2014. 2019. 2024. Three successive terms by the people of India, each one representing a renewed act of faith. To win the confidence of such a vast and diverse nation even once is remarkable. To win it three times, without interruption, is extraordinary,” he said.
Modi first took office on May 26, 2014, and has since led the country through three consecutive terms. “On this historic occasion, I bow to the wisdom of the Indian electorate and salute the honorable Prime Minister’s tireless dedication to the nation. May he be blessed with good health and a long life, and may the people of Bharat grant him more mandates in the service of our motherland,” Chadha wrote.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure as Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru served from August 15, 1947 to May 27, 1964 – a presidential term that lasted about 17 years. He inherited a newly independent country struggling from the effects of war Partition (one of the largest mass migrations in history), along with sectarian violence, refugee crises, food shortages, poverty, and the task of merging hundreds of princely states into a single republic.
He went on to win India’s first general election in 1951-1952, and remained in office until his death in 1964. She was India’s first female Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, served for less than 16 years across two separate terms.
Chadha’s comments come weeks after his high-profile appearance Leaving the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In April, the Rajya Sabha member joined the BJP along with six other AAP legislators. This led to a significant decline in the power of the AAP in the Senate. Chadha had cited corruption and a toxic internal culture within the party as reasons for his departure, while AAP had challenged the defections before the Rajya Sabha chairman.
