Lok Sabha Elections and Surprised Results
·
When PM Gandhi expected to win 340 seats, she
lost her own seat!
·
PM Vajpayee’s “India Shining” campaign doomed
him in year 2004
Dr.Hari Desai writes weekly column “Heritage History”
for “Asian Voice”, the Newsweekly of ABPL Group, London 4-10 May 2019. Web Link : https://bit.ly/2JfbLRg
Lok Sabha Elections and Surprised Results
When PM Gandhi expected
to win 340 seats, she lost her own seat!
PM Vajpayee’s
“India Shining” campaign doomed him in year 2004
Dr. Hari Desai
The
results of the Indian elections of 17th 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 6th 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.
Next Column: Gimmicks to win Indian
elections
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