Modi joins select club of hat trick CMs

Only 6 other politicians have managed to achieve rare distinction

 Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi joins the select club of six fellow-politicians who scored a hat trick of electoral victories as chief minister in the post.

It was Mohan Lal Sukhadia who was the founding member of this “club”. He was the chief minister of Rajasthan from 1954 to 1971.

Amongst the youngest to become to become chief minister at the age of 38, Sukhadia was also governor of three South Indian states – Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.Then came Jyoti Basu, who was the chief minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000.

Longest serving

The CPM veteran also has the distinction of being the longest-serving chief minister of any state as he won five successive terms as chief minister, something which will stay as a record for a long time to come.

Basu almost became the prime minister in 1996 but for his party vetoing it, a decision which catapulted Karnataka’s H D Deve Gowda as an unlikely prime minister. Congress leader Sheila Dikshit and another Marxist leader Manik Sarkar became chief ministers of Delhi and Tripura, respectively, in 1998. They will prepare to take a shot at the chief minister’s post for the fourth term late next year.

Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal became chief minister of then Orissa (now Odisha) in 2000 and Tarun Gogoi of Congress took over as his counterpart in Assam in 2001.
Modi is set to take over as chief minister for the third time on December 26.

Cong MLA dead

Even before the new Assembly could be formed in Gujarat, elected Congress MLA Savita Khant passed away in a private hospital after suffering brain haemorrhage. Khant, 52, won from the Morva Hadaf Assembly constituency. She had to be rushed to a hospital after she fell off the chair during counting process. Khant was not even aware of her success, reports DHNS from Ahmedabad.