New Delhi: If Atal Bihari Vajpayee can do, Manmohan Singh too can! Singh, 76, is set to even Vajpayee's feat of becoming Prime Minister for two consecutive terms with the Congress-led UPA emerging ahead in early trends.
The alliance was projected to get 242-250 seats, just 20-30 short of majority in the lower house of Parliament. In 1999, Vajpayee made a spectacular return to power, becoming the first leader to do so since the 1970s.
As counting of votes polled in Lok Sabha elections progressed, the answer was increasingly becoming clear that Singh, who in 2004 was unexpectedly named Prime Minister, was all set to reprise the role.
The 76-year-old leader is the first person to be projected as PM candidate by the Congress which has lorded over the affairs of the country for 50 years of the six decades that India has been independent.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi had thrown their weight behind his candidature and have often declared that the issue is "non-negotiable".
If Singh becomes the Prime Minister again, he will also be the first Congress Prime Minister outside the Gandhi-Nehru family to do so and that too while heading a coalition government.
After the Janata Party experiment in 1977 which saw two Prime Ministers Moraraji Desai and Charan Singh, Indira Gandhi came to power in 1980.
After her assassination in October 1984, Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister following a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha polls.
He could not repeat the magic in 1989 and chose to sit in the opposition despite the Congress emerging as the single largest party.
Since then getting a majority in Parliament has virtually proved to be a mirage for political parties.
While V P Singh was in the PM's chair for eleven months after the 1989 polls, Chandrashekhar who sprang a surprise on him lasted just four months.
P V Narasimha Rao completed a full term from 1991 to 1996 while Atal Bihari Vajpayee who followed him lasted just a few days with his government being dubbed as "thirteen day wonder" by opposition Congress.
H D Deve Gowda was then at the helm for 11 months and I K Gujral for four months. Then in 1998 and 1999 it was Vajpayee while Manmohan Singh caused an upset in 2004.
Singh joined politics at the insistence of P V Narasimha Rao in 1991, when he joined Rao's government as Finance Minister and became the architect of the economic reform process. While Rao failed to return to power, Singh has bettered his mentor.