No majority opinion

Caste-based and regional politics came to power, as disillusionment with the now-disgraced Congress government grew. Elsewhere, corruption scandals and coalition instability bogged down the United Front government led by Janata Dal leaders.

The eleventh sitting of the Lower House mirrored the turbulence and transformation that defined Indian politics in the late Nineties. The electorate denied majority to a single party, giving way to short-lived governments coming to power for brief stints. Coalition dynamics and regional party’s influence on national polity strengthened. One-party governance was a thing of the past and India was witnessing “a watershed moment in the evolution of federalism in the political party system”, The Hindu wrote in an editorial. Corruption scams, rising insurgency, communal tensions and passage of legislations like the women’s reservation Bill were dwelt upon by this Lok Sabha.

The polls

The 1996 elections were conducted between April 27 to May 30, across 543 Constituencies. Voting was staggered to ensure security measures. Muslim militant organisations fighting for independence of the region had vowed to boycott the polls. Voter turnout upturned by 2.05% from 1991, and the count of female electorates increased by 16.57%. This Lok Sabha saw the most contesting candidates – at 13,952 – with 10,635 independents and others fielded by 8 national and 39 state parties.

In a first, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the single largest party with 161 seats to its name. It almost doubled its share from the 1989 General Elections. The Indian National Congress (INC) trailed with 140 seats, followed by the Janata Dal which won 46 seats.

The house of the people

A three-way contest played out between the ruling Congress, BJP and a broad alliance of regional governments under the United Front coalition that pitched alternatives visions of a ‘secular’ government. The votes were splintered, there were no clear winners, resulting in a hung parliament. It was a “severely fractured verdict”, as The Hindu termed it.

With support from its allies, the BJP formed the government with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister. The government collapsed in 13 days as Mr. Vajpayee struggled to form a government.

Three United Front leaders were considered for the position next. The Third Force (the 13-party alliance with the Janata Dal, Samajwadi party, Telugu Desam Party, AGP, DMK, Akali Dal and others) backed Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Jyoti Basu and later V.P. Singh; both declined the position. H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal was sworn in as the next Prime Minister. Mr. Gowda led the United Front coalition for about 18 months, before Congress withdrew its support and Mr. Gowda lost a no-confidence motion in the House. Mr. Gowda resigned; Inder Kumar Gujral took over the office for less than a year before the country headed back to polls in 1998.

There was no Leader of the Opposition. INC’s Sharad Pawar, who had previously served as the Minister of Defence in P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government, emerged as a key opposition figure.

P. A. Sangma, one of the founding members of the National Congress Party (NCP), served as the Speaker of the House from May 23, 1996, to March 23, 1998. Electing a member of the Opposition as the Speaker was a “significant departure” in the 49-year-old history of Indian Parliament. Mr. Sangma’s tenure stressed on “decorum, dignity and autonomy” of the House, gained a reputation for his “affable, friendly and informal” disposition, and made efforts to modernise parliamentary proceedings.

The politics

The “negative verdict” signalled a “clear, firm and near-total” rejection of Mr. Rao-led Congress (I). The party, even though in a minority in 1991, was able to mobilise majority support then to form the government. 1996 was a different story. While Mr. Rao’s measures were popular and effective, economic reforms as an electoral plank were visibly “appropriated” by all national parties including the Left parties.

Moreover, Mr. Rao’s “calculated and crafty ways destroyed the party’s inner organisational core”. He also shared a “disregard” for party cadres in Tamil Nadu to Congress’s detriment. The party once upon a time clocked a strong voter base in southern States (most notably in Tamil Nadu); now, it failed to win a single seat. Tamil Nadu’s electorate had established through ballots “their power was mightier than autocracy and authoritarian tendencies”, the president of Tamil Maanila Congress said. The party’s history of corruption, bribery and scams further disillusioned the voters.

In contrast to Congress’s deflating appeal was the strong emergence of coalition governments and the strengthening of regional powers. States like Uttar Pradesh saw the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), reflecting a pivot to caste-based and regional politics. Nationally, the United Front coalition came to power with external support from Congress; it comprised 13 regional, socialist, Left-leaning parties headed by Janata Dal leaders. Congress eventually withdrew support from the alliance.

Right wing BJP’s growing voter base showed that Hindu nationalism as an electoral issue grew in appeal too. Mr. Vajpayee’s electoral campaign stressed religious identity, in addition to rallying for a ‘self-reliant’ India who restricted foreign investment and developed an independent nuclear weapon free from Western pressure. However, factionalism marred the party’s victory too; an ideological battle played out between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-RSS and other organisations.

The agenda

The government was tasked with responding to voter concerns of abuse of authority and “corruption in high places”. A series of scandals made headlines before, notably the Jain diary-linked hawala case and cattle feed scam of Bihar. There were also charges linking 10 politicians, including leader of the BJP L.K. Advani, for accepting bribes in return for favours. Then Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav was probed for embezzling funds in the ₹960 crore fodder scam.

Communalism, casteism and violence also took hold, as Muslim rebels waged a separatist insurgency in some parts. Mr. Gowda became the first Prime Minister in nine years to visit the Kashmir Valley, promising “maximum autonomy” to the region, The Hindu noted in an article. The United Front coalition had a better representation of the marginalised sections (Muslims, SC/ST, OBCs, and Dalits), policies were aimed at economic upliftment and “were not tinged with religious fervor.”. Mr. Gowda’s administration also unveiled a ‘dream budget’ in February 1997; a key feature was lower tax rates.

Mr. Gujral’s tenure in 1997 focused predominantly on India’s foreign policy, what came to be known as the ‘Gujral Doctrine’, a set of five principles where India sought to give more to neighbours and vowed to settle disputes peacefully and bilaterally. The logic was “to be at ‘total peace’ with all other immediate neighbours… to contain Pakistan’s and China’s influence in the region,” Mr. Gujral wrote in his biography. The policy helped India repair ties with countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The fragility of fledgling coalition alliances led to diverging views on policy. Mr. Gowda’s United Front Government introduced the Women’s Reservation Bill, proposing a 33% reservation for women in parliament. The legislation was opposed by members of the coalition government and was stalled due to a “number of political issues”. Fragmentation also took hold of parties: the new alliance was fractured due to diverging ideologies on class, caste and economic issues. Within the United Front, differences arose between Left Front leaders — Jyoti Basu of CPI(M) and the centrist Janata Dal member Lalu Prasad Yadav. Several UF leaders demanded Mr. Yadav’s resignation over corruption charges. The Janata Dal eventually split; Mr. Yadav’s splinter group of Rashtriya Janata Dal continued as part of the United Front.

Chandra Shekhar replaced Mr. Singh as Prime Minister with outside support from the Indian National Congress party.

The Hindu noted that “political instability, regional infighting and slow governance” along with a “weak and decentralised Delhi” remained the starkest features of the coalition. Congress withdrew support twice during this period: once on March 30, 1997, from Mr. Gowda-led government due to differences on seat sharing and policy issues; the second time was in November that year, during Mr. Gujral’s premiership. The Jain Commission report on Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination indicted the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government of maintaining links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), whose activists killed Mr. Gandhi. The Congress withdrew its support, resulting in another hung parliament.

India went back to polls in 1998.

References

1. Election Commission of India
2. Election Atlas of India: Parliamentary elections 1952 – 2014, edited by Dr. R. K. Thukral
3. “P.A. Sangma” report, by the Lok Sabha Secretariat 2019
4. Rangarajan, M. (1997) ‘The Indian general elections of 1996’, Electoral Studies, 16(2), pp. 254-258. doi:10.1016/s0261-3794(97)90089-5.
5. The video was taken from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nStQ0cO00ck
6. The Hindu Archives