PM Narendra Modi Delivers 98-Minute Independence Day Speech, His Longest Yet from Red Fort
On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the longest ever Independence Day speech from the historic Red Fort, which lasted 98 minutes.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the longest ever Independence Day speech from the historic Red Fort, which lasted 98 minutes. The speech surpassed his average speech duration of 82 minutes, setting a new record for the length of speeches delivered by any Indian Prime Minister on Independence Day.
His longest Independence Day speech before Thursday was 96 minutes in 2016, while his shortest was in 2017, when he spoke for about 56 minutes. On the 78th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a new milestone by becoming the third longest Prime Minister to deliver a speech on Independence Day, having hoisted the tricolour and delivered longer speeches before. Modi's first Independence Day speech in 2014 was 65 minutes long, followed by an 88-minute speech in 2015.
This year's address was his 11th as Prime Minister and the first after starting his third term. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered an 83-minute speech on Independence Day from the Red Fort. The next year his speech was around 92 minutes long, his second longest ever. In 2020, Modi's speech was 90 minutes long, while in 2021 it was 88 minutes and in 2022 it was around 74 minutes. Last year his speech was 90 minutes long.
Before Modi, Jawaharlal Nehru and I.K. Gujral held the record for the longest speeches of 72 and 71 minutes in 1947 and 1997 respectively. Nehru and Indira Gandhi also delivered the shortest recorded speeches of 14 minutes each in 1954 and 1966 respectively.
