Hindustan Times

Dipankar Ghose

Dhrubo Jyoti

A reversal of fortunes marks the start of a decade of Congress rule.

Sharp curves: An era of dramatic reversals

The 1999 Lok Sabha election was held soon after the April trust motion that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government lost by one vote, and it was a national poll held amid the Kargil War (which stretched from May to July).Still, when the counting was done, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had retained its seat share of 182. And the Congress’s share had dipped by 27 seats to 114, its lowest-ever tally at that time. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) easily formed the government, with the Janata Dal (United), Shiv Sena and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) being the largest non-BJP members, and with outside support from the Telugu Desam Party, which won 29 of the 42 seats in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.The 2004 election saw a reversal of fortunes. Following a potent campaign focussed on the “aam aadmi” or everyday Indian, the Congress creaked ahead of the BJP as the single-largest party, winning 145 seats to the incumbent’s 138. Though the Congress and its allies stopped well short of the magic figure of 272, they were ahead of the NDA. After days of hectic negotiation, the Left Front, buoyed by its best-ever showing of 59 seats, decided to back the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), marking the start of what would be a decade of Congress rule.

By the time the 2009 election came around, the mood was decidedly more mixed.Though India had weathered the 2008 financial crisis better than many economies, the scars were still there. The wounds of the 26/11 Mumbai terror siege of 2008 were still raw, as were those from a string of serial blasts across cities that decade.With LK Advani as its prime ministerial candidate, the NDA sought to corner the UPA on national security and development, but it didn’t stick. The UPA’s record of economic growth and social welfare — exemplified by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme — saw the Congress cross the 200-seat mark for the first time in 15 years. The Congress won 206 seats in 2009, far ahead of the BJP’s 116.