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From winning a record mandate in 1984 to suffering humiliation five years later, from clawing back in a coalition in 1991 to sinking to its worst Lok Sabha performance until then — the 1980s and 90s were a political rollercoaster for the Congress.
The election of 1996 was historic also because it brought the BJP to power for the first time, albeit for only 13 days. What followed was a third attempt at building a coalition government at the Centre after 1977 and 1989 — those experiments had lasted until 1979 and 1991 respectively; the 1996 edition would collapse in 1998.
The 11th Lok Sabha election was held between April 27 and May 7, 1996. Of the 59.25 crore eligible voters, 57.94% or 34.33 crore voted at more than 7.67 lakh polling stations. A total 13,952 candidates ran for 543 seats; the longest list of contestants — 480 — was at Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh, a seat that was won by the CPI’s Bommagani Dharma Bixam.
The Congress’s tally of 140 was its lowest since Independence — 14 fewer than in the Janata wave of 1977. Twenty-two of those seats were won in P V Narasimha Rao’s Andhra Pradesh.
With 161 seats, the BJP became the biggest party in Lok Sabha. It won 52 of the 85 seats in undivided Uttar Pradesh, and 27 out of 40 seats in undivided Madhya Pradesh.
The Janata Dal won 46 seats, CPI(M) 32, DMK and Samajwadi Party 17 each, CPI 12, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 11.
Rao, the outgoing Prime Minister, won in Nandyal, AP, and Berhampur, Odisha, and retained the latter seat. Kanshi Ram (BSP) won in Hoshiarpur, Chandra Shekhar (Samata Party) in Ballia, Maneka Gandhi (Janata Dal) in Pilibhit, and Vijaya Raje Scindia and her daughter Vasundhara Raje (both BJP) in Guna and Jhalawar respectively.
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Mulayam Singh Yadav, who would be Chief Minister of UP in a little more than three years, entered Lok Sabha for the first time. The former bandit Phoolan Devi became the SP MP from Mirzapur.
After President Shankar Dayal Sharma invited the BJP to form the government, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was administered the oath of office on May 16, 1996.
The Babri Masjid had been demolished by kar sevaks only three and a half years earlier, and the BJP was the political untouchable of the time. Its only allies were Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Parkash Singh Badal’s Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab.
On May 27, Vajpayee tabled the Motion of Confidence in Lok Sabha. After two days of debate, it was clear the motion would not pass. The Prime Minister told the House that he bowed to the numerical strength of his opponents but he would not rest until the larger national objective had been achieved.
“I am going to the President to submit my resignation,” he said, and left the House.
An anti-BJP 13-party United Front had already been formed by then. N Chandrababu Naidu, who had become Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh after leading a party rebellion against his father-in-law N T Rama Rao in 1995, was its convener. Once Vajpayee resigned, H D Deve Gowda, who was Chief Minister of Karnataka at the time, took oath as Prime Minister on June 1. He was not a Member of Parliament then, and was elected to Rajya Sabha in September.
Several stalwarts who had fought the Congress and BJP in their states got ministries in Deve Gowda’s government. Mulayam became Defence Minister, P Chidambaram, who had formed the Tamil Maanila Congress along with G K Moopanar earlier that year, became Finance Minister, and CPI’s Indrajit Gupta and Chaturanan Mishra became Home Minister and Agriculture Minister respectively.
Murasoli Maran (DMK) was given the Industry portfolio, and I K Gujral, Ram Vilas Paswan, and S R Bommai of the Janata Dal got External Affairs, Railways, and Human Resource Development respectively.
However, the United Front did not have a majority in Lok Sabha. To survive, Deve Gowda’s government found itself dependent on the outside support of the Congress.
The Congress was led at the time by Sitaram Kesri, an old loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi family who had been treasurer of the party since 1979. After Narasimha Rao lost the Lok Sabha election and was forced to give up the party leadership that September, Kesri emerged as the only candidate acceptable to all camps within the party.
On March 30, 1997, 10 months after Deve Gowda was sworn in, the Congress withdrew support to the government. The Prime Minister was forced to move a motion of confidence, which was rejected 292-158 on April 11.
Kesri said he was willing to support another United Front government under a new leader. Among the front runners were Mulayam and Moopanar, but it was the mild-mannered Gujral who unexpectedly emerged as the choice of the coalition. The CPI(M)’s Harkishan Singh Surjeet later revealed to The Indian Express in an interview that Mulayam had been cut out of the race by Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav who refused to accept him as Prime Minister.
Gujral took oath on April 21, 1997, and decided to continue with Deve Gowda’s cabinet. But he too, would not last in the post.
In November 1997, more than six years after Rajiv Gandhi was killed, the report of the Justice Milap Chand Jain Commission, set up to investigate the assassination, was leaked. The findings, which were subsequently tabled in Parliament, raised questions on the role of the DMK, a constituent party of the United Front — and handed the Congress a fresh reason to pressure the government.
It demanded the removal of DMK members from the government. When Gujral refused, Kesari pulled the plug on November 28, 1997. Gujral resigned, and Lok Sabha was dissolved.
