Modi is not the first instance when CM becomes PM

May 21, 2014

Prime Minister-to-be Narendra Modi is not the first Chief Minister to ascend to the seat of the head of Government of India. The distinction goes to former Karnataka CM H.D. Deve Gowda, who, moved to the post of Prime Minister in 1996.
Mr. Gowda resigned as Chief Minister and gave up his membership of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly after he was named PM. The Constitution of India permits a person, who enjoys the support of the majority of Lok Sabha MPs, to be sworn in as PM without being a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha.
However, the person has to get elected to either House of Parliament within a period of 6 months. Mr. Gowda chose to become a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Narendra Modi’s Case:
Because Mr. Modi is already elected as a member of the Lok Sabha from Vadodara and Varanasi, he will have to step down as CM and resign as the member of the Gujarat Assembly as well as one of the two Lok Sabha seats he has been elected. As per the law, an individual cannot be a member of the Lok Sabha/ Rajya Sabha as well as the Legislative Assembly. The person has to give up his membership of one of the two within 14 days of the notification of the election result by the Election Commission. The same rule applies to a person who is elected from more than one Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly seat.
The unique case of Narasimha Rao:
The case of the late Narasimha Rao is one of its kind. He had almost retired from politics and did not fight the 1991 Lok Sabha (LS) polls. But the situation took a sharp turn with the assassination of Congress prime ministerial candidate Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, where he was campaigning for the same LS elections.
The Congress won the elections and the party proposed Sonia Gandhi to be the PM but she declined the proposal. Then Mr. Rao, who had the support of Ms. Gandhi, was chosen for the job of Prime Minister. Subsequently, he contested a by-election from the Nandyal Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh and won with a record margin of over 5 lakh votes as the Telugu Desam Party endorsed his political campaign in the name of “Telugu pride”.