Hindustan Times

Dhrubo Jyoti

Dipankar Ghose

A dramatic fall, an assassination, a hung House; new conflicts and new divisions emerge.

A time of shaky victories, changing equations

The 1989 general election was held in the shadows of the Bofors bribery scandal, and turmoil in the Congress. The ruling party slumped from the biggest victory in India’s parliamentary history in 1984 to less than the majority mark just five years later.It won 197 seats, far fewer than the halfway mark, and this, largely due to an impressive performance in south India. VP Singh, who had resigned from Rajiv Gandhi’s finance ministry and rallied the Janata Dal, led that formation to 143 seats. But the biggest story of the election was the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which swelled from just two seats in 1989 to 85, on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.After the governments of VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar fell within two years, elections were called in 1991. But these polls were scarred by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu. A wave of sympathy helped the Congress reach 232 seats and PV Narasimha Rao managed to form a minority government that lasted the full five years.

But the 1996 elections threw up a hung House again, with the BJP ahead at 161 seats and the Congress trailing at 140. In a span of two years, three prime ministers – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral – came and went. The 1998 election finally saw the BJP cobble together a stable coalition, via the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BJP secured 182 seats and Vajpayee was sworn in for a second time.