India has had 14 major and minor prime ministers, without counting Gulzarilal Nanda who was the acting PM twice.
Here’s a quick count for millennials: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, and Narendra Modi.
Only one among them returned as prime minister after serving an interim stint as leader of the Opposition (LOP) in Parliament: Indira Gandhi! (Technically, Vajpayee could qualify, since he was PM for a mere 13 days in 1996, then LOP until 1997, and PM until 2004). And to my astonishment, over the last 80 years in the United Kingdom, only two prime ministers lost, became leader of the Opposition, and won back the premier’s office – the illustrious Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson!
So, there is an akashvani (celestial broadcast) being beamed at both the warriors, Prime Minister Modi and Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in the upcoming Mahabharata (epic battle) of 2019: The politician who retains the DNA of an Opposition leader even as he ascends to the prime minister’s office, he need never become the leader of the Opposition again!