The results of the Indian elections of 17 th Lok Sabha are expected to be declared on 23 May 2019 and it is most likely that the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi would form the Union government again. Of course, Indian elections are known to give surprises though not many. One such surprise came to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a shock in March 1977 when the results of the 6 th Lok Sabha elections were announced and another occasion was in May 2004 when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s “India Shining” campaign lost. On both the occasions, the blame-game started: for the defeat in 1977, the PM’s son and a villain of the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi, was being blamed who was mostly responsible for the excesses of the Emergency. For Vajpayee’s defeat the blame was passed on to his blue-eyed boy, Pramod Mahajan.
IG called the 1977 Lok Sabha elections after being told by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) that she would win up to 340 seats, according to R.K. Dhawan, IG’s trusted private secretary. Of course, even after losing the 1977 elections, the Congress could win 154 seats in the House of 545 where as the newly formed Janata Party with merging Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), Congress (O), Jan Sangh and other parties could muster 295 seats facilitating the election of Morarji Desai of Congress (O) as the Prime Minister. Chaudhary Charan Singh of BLD as well as Jagjivan Ram of Congress for Democracy were made the Deputy Prime Ministers. Not only PM Indira Gandhi but even her MP son Sanjay Gandhi lost from Rae Bareilly and Amethi respectively. Since southern States supported her, she chose to contest the bye-election of Chikmangalur in Karnataka to enter the Lok Sabha. Indira Gandhi’s Congress bounced back in 1980 with thumping majority of 374 of 542 and could capture power not only at the Centre but also in most of the States.
Prime Minister Vajpayee called the Lok Sabha elections six months early and used an “India Shining” slogan during his campaign in the hope that the feel-good factor among voters would return him to office. But the voters who took part in the poll appeared to have been put off by what many believed was a smug campaign. “They did not rally to his personal attack on Sonia Gandhi for being born in Italy and India’s rural majority have been left behind by the economic boom which has been largely confined to the urban middle classes,” reported The Telegraph of London. Despite Congress winning just 145 and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) headed by Sonia Gandhi only 218, the Congress led UPA could keep BJP (138) led NDA (185) away from forming the government. Dr. Manmohan Singh was elected as the leader of the House and became the PM for the first time. He was earlier the Finance Minister responsible for privatization, liberalization and globalization in 1991-95 Congress led minority government headed by P.V. Narsimha Rao.
In 2009, the Congress led-UPA could again form the government at the Centre with Congress winning just 206 seats and UPA only 10 short of majority i.e. 262. Dr. Manmohan Singh was sworn in as PM again with outside support of Samajwadi Party (23), Bahujan Samaj Party ( 21 ), Rashtriya Janata Dal ( 4), Janata Dal –Secular (3) and 3 other members. In May 2014, the Congress-led UPA-II got a sever set-back since none from UPA matched the firebrand Prime Ministerial candidate of NDA and Narendra Modi led his BJP to win 282 seats, 10 more than majority in the House though keeping the NDA (336) partners intact in the coalition government. This time he has to pass a litmus test.
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(The writer is a Socio-political Historian. E-mail: [email protected] )
