The prime minister has emerged as the most widely-travelled PM compared to his predecessors, Manmohan Singh and A B Vajpayee, reports Nivedita Mookerji.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who returned Tuesday morning from his first official visit to continental Africa, has now completed 24 international trips in a little over 25 months since he took charge in May 2014. He has been to 42 countries and stayed out of India for 113 days during this period, according to government data.
Modi has emerged the most widely-travelled PM compared to his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s first 25 months in both the United Progressive Alliance tenures. A B Vajpayee, who has been PM thrice, had travelled much less during the first 25 months of his full tenure in the previous National Democratic Alliance rule starting October 1999.
In the comparable 25-month period, Singh made 16 trips abroad during the first term starting May 2004 and 18 in the second term starting May 2009, lower than Modi’s 24. Vajpayee’s tally came to only six international visits in a similar duration when he was the PM.
Even in the number of countries visited in the same timeframe, Modi tops having gone to as many as 42. Singh’s itinerary put the number of countries he visited in the first 25 months during his initial term at 14 and 24 in the next. Vajpayee got to see only nine countries in the like-to-like period.
There are several countries where these men have officially visited more than once. For instance, all three have made repeat visits to the US; Modi made repeat trips to Nepal, France, Singapore, Russia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, too. Singh went to the UK, Russia besides the US more than once during the initial two years of his first term and again to Russia and the US more than once.
When it comes to the number of days spent out of the country during the first 25 months of each PM, Modi scores at 113 days, against 64 days and 76 days each for Singh in the two terms, and 49 days for Vajpayee.
If one was to calculate the average number of days spent per trip for these leaders, Vajpayee leads at 8.1 days per trip, against 4.7 days a trip of Modi, four days of Singh during the first term and 4.2 days in his subsequent tenure.
The expenditure incurred by the government cannot be compared at this point because data on PM Modi’s travel bills is not yet available for several of his trips.
Modi’s international travel -- especially his US trips, including the Madison Square reception, address at the US Congress and the Silicon Valley round -- has been in the news. His latest Africa visit is being seen as significant, too. He is the first PM from India to visit Mozambique in 34 years since Indira Gandhi went there in 1982.
