Amid the raging debates about the longest-serving Prime Minister of India, I remember an interesting insight shared by my late father, Pranab Mukherjee, about PM Narendra Modi’s landslide victory in 2014. Baba was then the 13th President of India. Despite belonging to different political ideologies, they shared an excellent rapport that, perhaps, is the hallmark of a true democracy.

After the election results were out, Modiji came to meet Baba at Rashtrapati Bhavan. During the course of the conversation, Baba asked him about his analysis of the election. He replied that after three decades, a political party had achieved an absolute majority. Baba, then, in his typical professorial style, asked, “what else?” When Modiji kept quiet, Baba pointed out that 2014 was unique in the history of Lok Sabha elections, as it featured a declared new face as the prime ministerial candidate.

The massive mandate of the people given to the BJP was not merely for his party, but it was a direct mandate for Modi as the Prime Minister of India. Unlike other elections, where the PM face is either assumed but not officially declared, or it is chosen by the newly elected MPs as per convention, or decided by coalition arithmetic, the process is done after the election.

Modi’s predecessor, Dr........

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