The 1996 Indian General Election

James Chiriyankandath

The Royal Institution of International Affairs

June 1996

Executive Summary

The general election in April and May returned India's third hung parliament in six years. While the defeat of Congress and the emergence of the Hindu nationalist BJP as the largest single party have attracted most attention, the rise of regional and low-caste parties have transformed politics at the centre. With the plural character of Indian society gaining political expression, coalition government may well become the rule rather than the exception.

A quiet election

India's eleventh general election was unusual. For the first time since independence the Congress Party began a campaign without the charismatic leadership of a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and the atmosphere in which some 590 million Indians were asked to cast their votes was uncharacteristically subdued.

This was partly due to the fact that these were the first polls in almost three decades to take place in the absence of a sense of either immediate crisis or intense expectation. (They were also the first since 1977 to cover the whole country -- in 1980 and 1989 voting had been postponed in Assam, in 1984 and 1991 it was postponed in Punjab, and in 1991 it could not take place in Jammu and Kashmir.)

The Election Commission was determined to ensure that blatant appeals to religious and caste sentiment were avoided and that candidates observed the spending limits, set at a ridiculously low 450,000 rupees (£9,000) even for a Lok Sabha (House of the People) constituency in a large state. In a country where most constituencies have well over a million voters, and some of the more sparsely populated cover an area the size of Belgium, this had a definite impact on the tenor of the campaign.

Whereas in the past the spending ceiling had been routinely disregarded, with politicians receiving large undeclared contributions in black-market currency from businessmen and criminal bosses, on this occasion not only did the Supreme Court order all political parties to submit up-to-date audited accounts but the Election Commission went to extraordinary lengths to ensure a relatively clean and peaceful election. 1,500 teams of observers, equipped with video cameras, were despatched to record campaigning; ministers were restrained from utilizing official machinery and dispensing patronage for electoral purposes; and severe restrictions were placed on the use of loudspeakers and on public advertising.

The humdrum nature of the campaign, and the oppressive pre-monsoon heat experienced in parts of the country, help explain the no more than average turnout as polling in most constituencies took place over three days between April 27 and 7 May (in the remainder, including four in the strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir, it was conducted at the end of May). On the positive side, a quiet election also meant that it was one of India's most peaceful. ₁

The Rao record

When P. V. Narasimha Rao took office in 1991, in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, he was heading only the second minority Congress government in India's history and few expected him to last a full term. However, Rao's skills as a parliamentary operator soon became apparent, although he was unable to offer the kind of charismatic national leadership the country had grown used to under three generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Instead, his approach combined a preparedness to support far-reaching economic liberalization with what seemed at times a strategy of calculated indecision in other areas, most notably the crisis over the Hindu nationalist campaign for a Ram temple at Ayodhya. This culminated in the destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu militants in December 1992, despite Rao's repeated assurances that he would defend it. This rendered the Congress Party's secular credentials suspect and lost it the support of the majority of India's Muslims (12% of the population).

Yet the government could point to solid achievements. The programme of economic liberalization implemented by Finance Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to yield impressive dividends, at least in terms of macroeconomic indicators. India's GNP growth rate rose from an anaemic 0.5% in 1991-2 to a healthy 6.7% in 1994-5, with annual foreign direct investment during the period increasing ninefold from US$ 154 million to US$ 1.3 billion and foreign portfolio investments rising from nil to almost four billion dollars by September 1995. ₂

In foreign affairs, after an uncertain start marked by a vacillating response to the unsuccessful coup in the Soviet Union in August 1991, the government reoriented policy to take account of post-Cold War realities -- laying new stress upon strengthening relations with Europe, Japan and the ASEAN states; establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel; withstanding US pressure to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and successfully countering the Pakistani diplomatic offensive on Kashmir.

At home, Rao quietly implemented the controversial Mandal Commission recommendations on a 27% reservation in public-sector jobs and educational institutions for the Other Backward Classes or OBCs (i.e. castes regarded as ritually superior to the erstwhile untouchable Scheduled Castes and Tribes but considered socially and educationally backward). And in Assam and Punjab new Congress state governments succeeded in restoring a measure of normalcy after a decade of separatist strife.

But, unfortunately for Rao, his lack of charisma meant that he won little credit for these aspects of the Congress (I)'s record, which were overshadowed in the public mind by the indecision over Ayodhya and a succession of corruption scandals. The latter culminated in the multimillion dollar Jain hawala (money-laundering) case which, less than three months before the elections, forced the resignation of seven members of the government and resulted in charges against some 30 politicians -- both Congressmen and several opposition leaders -- alleged to have received illegal payments. Although Rao was not indicted, and, indeed, was regarded by some of those who were as having manipulated the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, unsubstantiated allegations made against him in relation to this and other cases also sullied his reputation.

Parties and alliances

The broad patterns of the electoral contest in 1996 were not radically different from those in 1991. Once again the three principal political forces vying for power were Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a loose centre-left Third Front composed of the National Front and the Left Front. However, all three had undergone some changes, with both Congress and the centrist Janata Dal (JD), the major constituent in the NF, suffering splits.

The BJP gained useful allies in two northern states where it needed to reinforce its position. In Haryana it fought the elections in combination with the Haryana Vikas Party of Bansi Lal, an ex-Congress chief minister, and in Bihar it formed an odd electoral compact with the Samata Party that had been formed by dissident members of the JD led by a socialist former Union minister, George Fernandes. It also maintained its alliance with the chauvinist Shiv Sena, its partner in government in the western state of Maharashtra since their victory in the February 1995 state assembly elections.

In 1993 Rao had succeeded in winning over a faction of the JD led by Ajit Singh, the son and political successor of the powerful north Indian farmers' leader and late prime minister Charan Singh. But this gain was soon followed by a damaging series of party splits. First, in May 1995 two senior Congress leaders -- Arjun Singh, a former member of Rao's cabinet who had been expelled from the party after openly criticizing the Prime Minister, and N.D. Tiwari, a former finance minister -- formed a breakaway All India Indira Congress. Then, on the eve of the elections, Congress leaders in two important states also launched their own parties.

In Madhya Pradesh, Arjun Singh's home state, Madhavrao Scindia, among the most prominent and charismatic of the younger Congress leaders, floated the Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress (Scindia had been refused a party ticket in the elections after being implicated in the hawala scandal and forced to resign from the cabinet). Even more serious was the resolution by many of the Congress leadership in the southern state of Tamil Nadu to disassociate themselves from Rao's unexpected decision to ally with the ADMK chief minister, and former film star, Jayalalitha, whom they saw as corrupt, autocratic, unpopular and an unreliable partner. The rebels constituted a Tamil Maanila Congress and concluded an electoral alliance with the ADMK's main opponent, the DMK.

But the disunity in Congress was nothing compared with the seemingly unending splits and mergers that characterized the fractious groupings on the centre-left of Indian politics, mainly supported by people belonging to the traditionally underprivileged -- but numerically powerful and increasingly assertive -- lower castes. Having come together in the JD on the eve of the 1989 general election, by the early 1990s they had splintered into a bewildering array of parties and factions. Yet, as the Lok Sabha polls approached, a rump JD once again became the focus of attempts to evolve a non-Hindu nationalist alternative to Congress. The electoral alliance that finally emerged was both less comprehensive and less cohesive than those forged in 1989 and 1991. Although the JD strengthened its beleaguered position in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, by forming a common anti-BJP front with the breakaway Samajwadi Party of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, the complex, sometimes crosscutting pre-poll understandings only increased the likelihood that the 1996 poll would produce no clear national outcome.

National themes -- regional verdicts

There were also more deep-seated factors behind the differentiated picture that emerged from the elections: these include regionally focused strength, especially of the non-Congress parties; and the absence of either towering national personalities or an overwhelming sense of national crisis (as existed, for example, after Mrs Gandhi's assassination in 1984). After nearly 50 years of competitive mass democratic politics, and far-reaching social and economic change, the plural character of Indian society is finding expression at the federal level.

With the progressive mobilization of new social groups, especially among the OBCs and Dalits (erstwhile untouchables), old styles of politics and governance have become unsustainable. As the historical party of government, the Congress (I) is the principal victim of this process. It is having to come to terms with the reality that neither the paternalistic dominant party system that worked for it under Nehru, nor the plebiscitary, sometimes arbitrary, populism pursued by Mrs Gandhi and her son Rajiv, can succeed in absorbing pressures from previously quiescent groups.

In a state the size of India, by its very nature such pressure from below gives rise to a multiplicity of political patterns. The result of the 1996 elections (see Table 1) can, therefore, plausibly be interpreted as the outcome of a number of different kinds of contests (Table 2). Only in half a dozen of the 25 states, in western and northern India, did the BJP and Congress face each other as the principal contenders. In more than a dozen states, especially in the south and east, Congress confronted either the Third Front or regional parties as its main opponents. Congress was marginal to the contest in the big northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the traditional hub of Indian politics, where the BJP and the National Front vied for supremacy, and in Tamil Nadu, where rival local Dravidian parties were dominant. Only in the southern state of Karnataka was there anything resembling a three-way contest involving all the main contenders for power at the centre.

Given this regional differentiation, it would be misleading to interpret the results as indicating the absence of national concerns or even a national outcome. Despite the economic expansion fuelled by liberalization, issues such as unemployment and inflation were major concerns everywhere. And while all parties were seen as tarred with the same brush of corruption, Congress, as the party in power, could plausibly be regarded as particularly culpable. The worsening problem of shortages in water and power supplies also did not improve the temper of voters.

Thus, although there was no clear overall victor, Congress was indubitably a national loser. In the absence of any acute sense of national crisis, Rao's promise of stability failed to prevail over the anti-incumbent sentiment that has run deep in India for the past two decades -- five of the last six general elections have resulted in defeat for the party in government. Apart from a few isolated pockets where it was out of power at the state level (Gujarat, West Bengal), or had only recently come to power (Himachal Pradesh, Orissa), Congress lost ground almost everywhere.

Congress -- down but not out

The haemorrhage in Congress support was as great as in 1989 or 1977, the two previous occasions when it had been ousted from power, but with a crucial difference -- this time it was sliding down from a significantly lower base. Between the extraordinary crisis polls of 1984 and 1989, the party dropped from 48.1% of the popular vote to 39.5%; after declining further to 36.5% in 1991, it now finds itself below the 30% mark for the first time in its history. At this level, given the still relatively even spread of its support (see Table 2), the first-past-the-post electoral system is beginning to disadvantage Congress. It won over 28% of the vote but only 26% of the seats.

It was not only at the centre that Congress suffered defeat; it was also ousted from office in three far-flung states where assembly elections were held simultaneously -- Kerala, Assam and Haryana. For the first time in 60 years it also failed to win a single assembly or parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu, paying the penalty for Rao's disastrous decision to ally with Jayalalitha's ADMK. (If it had retained the seats won by the rebel Tamil Congressmen, as well as other recent defectors, Congress would have remained the largest single party.)

Although it has made impressive comebacks before, the situation it is in now is unprecedented. Its initial reaction to defeat was to ward off any immediate danger of a post-electoral split by closing ranks behind the 75-year-old Rao. Once again proving adroit in internal party manoeuvring, he took advantage of the fact that many other senior Congress leaders had been sidelined by either the hawala scandal (Scindia) or personal electoral defeat (ex-Kerala chief minister K. Karunakaran). Rao was thus able, for the time being, to retain both the Congress presidency and the leadership of the parliamentary party, fobbing off critics with the promise of organizational elections by the end of the year. However, while some potential rivals, such as the former chief minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, emerged from the polls weakened, and others such as Rajesh Pilot, one of the few younger leaders to survive the Congress rout in the Hindi-speaking belt, are still seen as lacking in seniority and experience, they cannot be expected to hold their fire for long if party fortunes fail to improve. Neither can those who continue to harbour hopes of a revival with the entry of either Sonia, Rajiv Gandhi's Italian-born widow, or of her daughter (Priyanka) or son (Rahul) into active politics.

Congress remains the party with the widest base of national support, both regionally and socially. But this support is increasingly thinly spread. The party retains control of the state government in just three of the 15 politically significant states that return ten or more Lok Sabha MPs -- Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Orissa. It is no longer the dominant party anywhere, having lost three-fifths of its seats in the south, a Congress bastion in 1991 and 1989. In Uttar Pradesh, the state that had returned Rao's four predecessors as Congress prime ministers, its share of the vote has declined to a humiliating 8%. While Congress has been replaced by the BJP as the first choice of upper-caste Hindus, especially in northern and western India, it has also in large measure lost the support of Muslims (alienated by its vacillation over Ayodhya), Dalits and OBCs, all of whom have been gravitating in growing numbers to either the Third Front or regional parties. So, to convert the potential still inherent in its national spread, Congress needs to accomplish what would be one of the most ambitious transformations in its 111-year history. It may well prove more feasible for the party to adapt by accepting the logic of a plural situation and pursuing alliances and accommodations on a far wider scale than before.

BJP -- the limits of success

If the Congress has to cope with the reality of steady decline, the problem facing its most formidable rival is how to transcend the limits of its success. Although the BJP emerged as the largest party, this triumph for the Hindu nationalists was based on a circumscribed electoral base. Its regionally concentrated strength (see Table 2) allowed it (together with its local allies) to win over a third of the seats with under a quarter of the national vote (the BJP itself barely exceeded the 20% vote share it had got in 1991). In 13 contiguous states and territories across western and northern India, where it is a major force, the BJP and its associates increased their share of the vote by over 5% to 36%, claiming 185 of the 330 seats, but in 16, also contiguous, states and territories across southern and eastern India, their vote actually fell to under 7% and they won only two of the 192 seats.

This geographic split is paralleled by the socially skewed profile of BJP voters: 96% Hindu, they are also disproportionately upper caste, better educated (i.e. high school or college graduates) and urban -- a third or more in each of these categories voted for the party. ₃

If the party had had to rely simply on the aggressive promotion of Hindutva (Hindu-ness) by kindred organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS -- National Self-Help Organization), the 70-year-old parent body of the Hindu nationalist movement, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Council of Hindus), it could not have made the substantial gains that it has over the past decade. In north India the increasing assertiveness of the lower castes, as well as Muslims, helped persuade many historically privileged upper-caste people to abandon Congress for the more muscular politics of the BJP; in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar it gained two-thirds of the upper-caste vote.

In certain areas the BJP has extended its appeal to include significant numbers of tribals, among whom RSS affiliates have worked for decades, and the increasingly politically significant OBCs. Part of the explanation can be found in the overarching appeal of Hindutva in northern and western India, but the BJP has also skilfully used alliance strategies to expand its social base in states where it had previously not been strong. (In fact, in three of the four states where the BJP made substantial gains in 1996 -- Bihar, Haryana and Maharashtra -- it had powerful local allies; in the fourth -- Madhya Pradesh -- it was the beneficiary of Congress divisions.)

Yet the limits of this growing influence were exposed when, on 15 May 1996, President Shankar Dayal Sharma asked Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP's parliamentary leader, to form a government as the leader of the largest party. The BJP sought to downplay the most contentious aspects of its manifesto, but was unable to win the parliamentary support it needed to survive a vote of confidence. The Sikh Akali Dal, conscious of the BJP's strength in the areas neighbouring Punjab and of the party's sympathy for the plight of Sikhs during the years of strife, was the only regional party to give its backing. Vajpayee's government remained more than 70 seats short of a majority when the 11th Lok Sabha finished debating a motion of confidence on 28 May. The new prime minister submitted his resignation without even waiting for the vote and India's first Hindu nationalist government gave way after barely a fortnight in office.

Vajpayee, foreign minister in the 1977-9 Janata government, has enjoyed a more emollient image than his colleague, BJP president L. K. Advani, who did not contest the elections because he had to face charges in the hawala case. Yet this proved insufficient to allay widely held misgivings that the BJP remained, at heart, a north Indian party that was anti-Muslim, intolerant of non-Hindus and non-Hindi-speakers, and unsympathetic to both regional aspirations and those of the lower castes. (After all, its election manifesto had committed it to Hindutva and proclaimed its belief in 'one nation, one culture, one people'. ₄

Unwieldy Third Front

Vajpayee was succeeded as prime minister on 1 June by former Karnataka chief minister Hardanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda, the Third Front's surprise candidate for the post. It was a dénouement to the 1996 elections that few could have predicted. The NF-LF combine had emerged from the polls with fewer seats than in 1991, largely owing to the loss of regional allies and defections from the JD. Nevertheless, the scale of the Congress reverse and the BJP's isolation enabled it to step into the breach.

In the electoral contest the Left Front largely held its own, winning 50 of its 54 seats in its traditional strongholds in the east and south where, in state assembly polls, it retained its grip on West Bengal and ousted the Congress-led alliance in Kerala. However, the JD's signal success in Karnataka was not enough to offset losses in the north. In Bihar, governed by the maverick populist JD president Laloo Singh Yadav, the NF-LF barely outstripped the BJP-Samata alliance. In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh too, the BJP benefited from the rivalry between parties vying for the support of lower castes. The division of votes between the OBC and Muslim-backed Samajwadi Party and its erstwhile coalition partner, the Bahujan Samaj Party, favoured by the majority of Dalits, enabled the BJP to win 52 of the 85 seats. (The BSP also did well in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, gaining Dalit votes at the expense of Congress.)

After the elections the unwieldy nature of the Third Front placed it at an initial disadvantage in staking a claim to government. While it was the obvious first choice for most of the major regional parties, the largest of which had at one time or another formed part of the NF, it lacked a strong core. The weakened JD had won less than a tenth of the seats in the Lok Sabha (it had held a quarter in 1989, the last occasion when the NF had formed a government). It took four days of hectic discussions between the leaders of a Front now widened to include all the main regional parties (except the Akali Dal) and the dissident Congress groups to arrive at the choice of Deve Gowda. Even though he then secured a commitment of Congress support from Rao, giving him the promised backing of well over 300 MPs, this proved too belated to forestall the president's decision to call first upon Vajpayee. If President Sharma had done otherwise, he might have laid himself open to the charge that he had disregarded the verdict of the electorate and anticipated that of the new parliament.

Regional parties -- the new kingmakers

The biggest winners in this election were the regional parties. The 'Others'' overall share of the vote actually matched that of Congress (see Table 1), and their seat total, if those won by regionally based parties allied with the BJP, Congress or the Third Front are included, amounts to nearly a quarter of the Lok Sabha, compared with a tenth in 1991.

Part of this phenomenal increase can be explained by former Congressmen floating their own parties, but the greater part reflects the success of well-entrenched regional forces. Dravidian parties have ruled Tamil Nadu since 1967 and this time the DMK-led alliance made a clean sweep. In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where the Telugu Desam has been in power for eight of the 13 years since its formation in 1983, the ruling Naidu faction bettered the united party's 1991 performance. Further north, in Punjab, the Akali Dal, Congress's main opponent since independence, won 11 of the 13 seats in alliance with the BSP. In Assam, the Asom Gana Parishad, the outgrowth of a powerful student movement against illegal Bengali immigration in the early 1980s, defeated the ruling Congress (I) in state elections. And in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena's symbiotic relationship with the BJP bore further fruit, with the two together claiming 33 of the 48 seats.

The DMK, TD and AGP had formed part of V. P. Singh's National Front government in 1989-90 and Singh was instrumental in facilitating their accession to the Third Front in spite of pre-poll disagreements with the JD. Given their much deeper conflicts with Rao's Congress, as well as the Third Front's emphasis upon decentralization and strengthening federalism, this was a logical step.

Once part of a reconstituted thirteen-party front, renamed the United Front (UF) at a 'Save India from Communalism' rally in Delhi on 20 May, the three southern regional leaders -- the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Chandrababu Naidu and M. Karunanidhi, and G. K. Moopanar of the Tamil Maanila Congress -- assumed a central role in the deliberations that resulted in the nomination of Deve Gowda, another southern chief minister. On the eve of his taking office, the DMK, TMC, TD and AGP formed a new Federal Front with a parliamentary strength matching that of the Left Front and the JD-Samajwadi alliance.

Can the plural centre hold?

Deve Gowda was sworn in as India's eleventh prime minister on 1 June. He has six months in which to return to the Lok Sabha, having previously served as an MP from 1991 to 1994. Though little known outside his home state, the 63-year-old already had more than three decades of political activity behind him when he became chief minister of Karnataka in December 1994. A member of the locally dominant Vokkaligga (cultivator) caste in southern Karnataka, he was elected to the state assembly in 1962. After being imprisoned during Mrs Gandhi's emergency rule, he served in the Janata state government of Ramakrishna Hegde in the 1980s. Leaving Janata as a result of differences with Hegde in 1989, Deve Gowda reunited his breakway group with the JD in 1993. In his 17 months as chief minister, he proved an able administrator and enthusiastic about wooing foreign investment and promoting technological development. The fact that he is the first prime minister of India who does not speak Hindi, follows Rao as the second south Indian to occupy the post, and is also only the second (after Charan Singh) from a ritually inferior farming caste, is not incidental. It highlights the growing 'regionalization' of Indian politics, and demonstrates how, paradoxically, the rise of the politically 'untouchable' Hindu nationalist BJP has shifted the centre of gravity away from the upper castes of the Hindi heartland of north India.

A comparison of the Deve Gowda government with Vajpayee's short-lived ministry illustrates the difference. Seven of the twelve cabinet ministers sworn in with Deve Gowda were south Indians, as opposed to just one of the eleven BJP ministers. The only notable northerners were the Samajwadi leader, and OBC champion, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who became Defence Minister, and the Minister for Railways and Parliamentary Affairs, Ram Vilas Paswan, the most prominent Dalit in the JD leadership. For the first time in the history of independent India, the cabinet included no Brahmins (both Rao and Vajpayee are Brahmins).

Deve Gowda's choice in appointing the first batch of 21 ministers was limited by the fact that while the three southern regional parties had agreed to join the erstwhile NF in the government, the CPI(M) had resolved not to do so, and the CPI and the AGP were still undecided (both subsequently expressed their willingness, clearing the way for the appointment of the first ever communist members of an Indian government when the ministry is expanded). Furthermore, the decision not to pick politicians facing charges in the hawala case ruled out a number of veteran national figures, notably Congress rebels.

Conscious of the need to allay anxiety in the Indian business community, and among foreign investors, that the erstwhile Third Front's catch-phrase of 'growth with social justice' might mean backtracking on economic liberalization, Deve Gowda appointed P. Chidambaram of the TMC as finance minister. Chidambaram, a Harvard Business School-educated lawyer, had been an enthusiastic proponent of liberalization as commerce minister in the Rao government. Similarly, the return of I. K. Gujral, a 77-year-old former foreign minister, to his old portfolio was also meant to provide a sense of continuity. (In fact, foreign affairs is one area on which all the three main parliamentary groupings share broadly similar perspectives, though the BJP has sounded the most defiant note in asserting that India should not submit to US pressure to give up the option to develop nuclear weapons. An early test of the government's flexibility will come in the negotiations on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty currently under way in Geneva.)

In large measure continuity in policy will be assured by the very fragility of the new government, dependent as it is on Congress support. The problem for Deve Gowda is how to reconcile this with the unavoidable exigencies involved in managing a diverse coalition, many of the constituents of which face Congress as their principal opponent at the state level. To avoid meeting the same fate as the two previous goverments that had relied upon Congress backing (Charan Singh's in 1979 and Chandra Shekhar's in 1990-91), both of which fell within a matter of weeks, Deve Gowda sought to get the UF parties to agree to a common minimum programme.

The 15-point programme pledged that the Front would continue the liberalization of the economy and welcomed foreign investment that would assist technological development and export growth. Specific legislative proposals included anti-corruption measures such as the institution of a Lok Pal (or parliamentary ombudsman), the reservation of a third of the seats in parliament and in state legislatures for women, the extension of reserved quotas in government jobs and education to Christian Dalits, and a constitutional amendment to prevent the abuse of the Union government's power to dismiss a state government. To encourage an end to the six-year conflict with Kashmiri separatists, the Front also expressed its willingness to concede the 'maximum degree of autonomy' to the state.

While Congress broadly welcomed the agenda, it reserved its position on two important issues: the Front's desire to update the 1988 Sarkaria Commission report's recommendations on centre-state relations and the devolution of power to the states; and referral of the Ayodhya controversy to the Supreme Court for a binding decision. But ultimately, as long as Congress remains outside the government, its continued support is likely to depend as much on internal pressures and electoral calculations as on issues. As it is, the BJP stands to gain the most if the Front government collapses soon.

Yet given the deep-rooted nature of the social and political changes that have produced India's third successive hung parliament, Deve Gowda may well be proved right when he says: 'Gone are the days when a single political party could govern the country ... The era of coalitions has commenced'. ₅ If so, India's political leaders need to demonstrate the qualities required to build and sustain coalitions that can provide effective government at the centre - qualities that have already been tried and tested, with some success, in the states.

 

< td>Indian Union Muslim League

Table 1: The 11th Lok Sabha (House of the People)
Party/Alliance	Seats	Gain/ Loss	% of vote
BJP & Allies	188	+64	23.5
Bharatiy a Janata Party (BJP)	162	+42	(+2.7)
Shiv Sena	15	+11
Samata Party	8	New party
Haryana Vikas Party (HVP)1	3	+2
C(I) & Allies	143	-117
Indian National Congress (Indira)	140	-104	28.1
2	No change	(-8.4)
Kerala Congress (Mani)	1	No change
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK)	0	-11
Others	0	-2
Third Front	116	-19	20.2
National Front (NF)	62	-16	(-4.7)
Janata Dal (JD)	45	-14
Samajwadi Party (SP)	17	New party
Others (incl. NTR Telugu Desam)	0	-19
Left Front (LF)	54	-3
Communist Party of India (CPI(M))	32	-3
Communis t Party of India (CPI)	13	-1
Revolutiona ry Socialist Party	5	+1
All India Forward Bloc	3	No change
Others	1	No change
Other parties & Independents	96	+81	28.2
Tami l Maanila Congress (TMC)	20	New party	(+10.4)
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)	17	+17
Telugu Desam (Naidu) (TD)	16	Majority TD group
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)	11	+8
Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)	8	+8
Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)	5	+4
All India Indira Congress (Tiwari)	4	New party
Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress	2	New party
Karnataka Congress Party	1	New party
Other minor parties	6	-4
Independents	6	+5
Total	543 2
Note: The percentage vote is taken from Yogendra Yadav, 'How India Voted', India Today, 31 May 1996, pp. 22, 24. Parties belonging to the United Front formed after the elections are shown in italics. 1 The HVP had not been allied to the BJP in 1991. 2 Two nominated Anglo-Indian representatives complete the 545-miber house.

 

---

 

Table 2: Representation in the 1996 Lok Sabha (by region)
Region	North	West	South	East
Total seats	180	143	131	89
BJP (incl. allies)	92 (+29)	88 (+34)	6 (+1)	2 (+-)
C(I) (incl. allies)	21 (-11)	47 (-40)	39 (-66)	36 (+-)
Third Front	45 (-24)	0 (-1)	31 (+12)	40 (-6)
Others (incl. regional parties)	22 (+15)	8 (+7)	55 (+53)	11 (+6)
Note: The 'North' includes six states (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh), the Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh; the 'West' includes five states (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa) and the Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu; the 'South' includes four states (Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala) and the Territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry; and the 'East' includes West Bengal, Orissa and Assam and seven small northeastern states, as well as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

 

Notes

Note 1: According to the Chief Election Commissioner the number of election-related deaths fell from 300 in 1991 to 52. The Asian Age (London), 5 June 1996, p. 4. Back.

Note 2: Government of India, Economic Survey, 1995-96; Tata Services Ltd, Dept. of Economics and Statistics, Statistical Outline of India 1995-96, Bombay, p. 145. Back.

Note 3: This analysis uses statistical data presented by Yogendra Yadav, 'Exit Poll: Who Voted Whom', India Today, 31 May 1996, pp. 24-7. Back.

Note 4: Bharatiya Janata Party, For a Strong and Prosperous India. Election Manifesto 1996 (New Delhi), pp. 6-7. Back.

Note 5: The Hindu International Edition (Madras), 8 June 1996, p. 1. Back.