Elections in India: - interesting stories from the past

Elections in India: - interesting stories from the past

General elections 2014 are round the corner and time is not far away when India will decide its next Prime Minister. With the declaration of election dates, only one month is left to hit the polling booths. And the general elections 2014 are going to be the biggest democratic events of the country as more than 814 million people will cast their vote this time. But what about the previous governments and PMs of India? When did the elections started in India and how? There are many interesting facts and stories hidden in these questions. To know about the history of electoral politics in India and more, we will have to move straight away to 15th August 1947 when India got independence.


At that time, the constituent assembly, established in the year 1946, which was in the process of preparing the constitution of India served as the temporary parliament and Jawahar lal Nehru was appointed as the PM by the Governor General Lord Mountbatten. The first sitting of the assembly was held on 9 December 1946 and their members (207) were indirectly elected by the people of India. On 26 January 1950 when the constitution took effect, the assembly was made the provisional parliament till the 1951 general elections, which were also the 1st elections of Independent India.The first votes of this election were cast in the tehsil of Chini in Himachal Pradesh on 25 October 1951 In these elections, congress won 364 out of 489 seats and J.L. Nehru became the PM. G.V. Manvalankar was the first speaker of Lok Sabha. It was during his leadership that the Hindu Code Bill was passed. Very few people know that it is because of this bill that women of Hindu religion have equal rights over property, right to divorce and this was the very bill which restricts Hindu men to have only one wife at a time. Now-a-days, we hear the term Common Civil Code. It is being demanded that a Uniform civil code must be passed for all religions. Well coming back to Nehru, he remained to be the PM for consecutively 3 times till his death in 1964. It was during his tenure that the India-China war 1962 happened in which China won and since then it has been raising its claim over Arunachal Pradesh and the tension between both nations still continues.


After his death, Gulzari Lal Nenda was made the interim Pm and later on Lal Bahadur Shastri was sworn in as the next PM of India in June, 1964. During his tenure, first India-Pakistan war 1965 happened and within no time India won the battle. Shastri went to Russia to sign the Tashkent Ceasefire Declaration with Pakistani President Ayub Khan but he died there. Again Gulzari Lal Nanda was made the interim PM. And then entered the most talked about leader of political era, Indira Gandhi who took oath as the next PM in January 1966. Now from 1951 to 1966, India had seen three elections-1951, 1957, 1962. Uptil now, there was no major opposition party and few parties like Jan Sangh, CPI atc. Were formed but they were not strong.


With the advent of Indira era, congress easily won the 1967 elections. Here one needs to know that during 1967, India was facing a strong famine and food grain shortage. To borrow finances form USA, she had freed the Indian rupee from government control. Since then, the price of rupee in international currency is decided by market forces. Banks were nationalized, Privy Purse was banned (giving financial assistance to kings and princes of Indian provinces), first nuclear test in Pokharan happened. In 1971, congress again won a thumping majority. Under her leadership, India helped the then eastern Pakistan to become an independent nation now known as “Bangladesh” by winning the India-Pakistan war 1971. But in 1975, Indira Gandhi was accused of electoral fraud by the Allahabad High Court and she was asked to vacate her seat. So, she announced emergency in the country to prevent the execution of court order. At that time, President was Fakuruddin Ali Ahmed. The emergency rule lasted for 19 months and it saw the debacle of Indira Gandhi as ahe lost the 1977 elections. For the first time, a non congress government was formed with Morarji Desai as the PM. In a series of political events, Desai resigned as PM in 1979 and Chaudhary Charan Singh was made the next PM with Congress support and later his government fell in 1980. In 1981, Indira again came back to power and became the next PM. In 1984, she ordered the Army for “Operation Blue star” in which army stormed the golden temple to catch jarnail singh “Bhindrawale”, a terrorist of Khalistan movement. She was assassinated by her own sikh bodyguards in 1984 in revenge of her orders to storm the golden temple (holy place of Sikhs). Rajiv Gandhi, her son was made the interim PM.


In 1984 elctions, congress won with biggest majority but he was voted out of power in 1989 after the famous “bofors scandal” in which there were reports that to buy the bofors tanks, kickbacks have been received by middlemen and even his name popped up in the controversy. V.P. Singh became the next non congress PM from Janata dal. At this point of time BJP was becoming a prominent party and many other regional parties like DMK etc. have emerged. V.P. Singh enforced the Mandal Commission report making a provision for 27% reservation for OBCs besides the already applicable 23% reservation for SCs and STs in government jobs. His decision was opposed by many general category students. His government, a highly coalition govt. fell in 1990 and nation went to elections. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by LTTE against his decisions to send peace force in Sri Lanka. Again a coalition govt. was formed and Chandra Shekhar became the next PM but only for 223 days as govt. fell. Elections were again held in 1991 and congress came back to power with P.V Narsimha Rao as its next PM. At that time, India was facing a major financial crunch due to its tight economic policies and India had to mortagage its gold to get loan from foreign agencies.Then Liberalization and privatization norms were bought to attract foreign investment. Since then, India has become home to foreign investors. In 1996, elections Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Pm of India for 16 days as his govt. could not win the confidence vote. after him, HD dewe Gowda and I K Gujaral became PM for around 1-1 year each. Then in 1998 elections, NDA won the majority and A.V. Bajpayee became the first non-congress PM to complete the tenure of 5 years till 2004.

Congress came back to power for consecutively 2 times in 2004 and 2009 with Manmohan Singh as the PM. Now, the country is eagerly awaiting the arrival of 16th Lok Sabha. Let’s see how many more interesting stories frame up in the future of political India.