The practice till then, and in all parliamentary democracies, was that the leader of the party’s parliamentary party became the head of government. In May 2004, the Congress had Sonia as chairperson of the parliamentary party, Pranab Mukherjee as leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, and Manmohan Singh as the leader in the Rajya Sabha. Sonia then nominated Singh as the party’s choice to head the government. Thus, Manmohan Singh became the first nominated, rather than elected, prime minister.
