View of the Lok Sabha in the new Parliament building.
Credit: PTI Photo
India's Lok Sabha elections are coming up and Narendra Modi is aiming for a third term in the prime minister's office.
With a promise to cross 400 seats in the Parliament in the 2024 general elections, BJP is eyeing a sixth win since India gained independence.
The saffron party has already been the major victor in five Lok Sabha polls, while the Congress, India's grand old party, with nine wins still has the lead.
In 1971, the INC (R) won the general elections. The party was formed in 1969 by Indira Gandhi, dividing the original INC into two - the Indian National Congress (Organisational) and the Indian National Congress (Requisitionists). Led by Gandhi, INC (R) overcame the split in the party and won by a landslide, focusing on alleviating poverty during the poll campaign.
The Janata Party, formed in reaction to the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government between 1975 and 77, managed to win the general elections in 1977, but tensions began to emerge within the party, with many unhappy with L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee's RSS affiliations.
Morarji Desai, the first non-Congress Prime Minister since independence, saw support dwindling through 1979, and ultimately resigned. Though Charan Singh was projected as the next alternative, he failed to prove majority in the Parliament, forcing fresh elections to be called for in 1980.
The Congress again returned to power.
In the 1989 Lok Sabha election, Rajiv Gandhi and his party lost the mandate, despite being the single largest party in the Lok Sabha. V P Singh, who headed Janata Dal — the second-largest party at the time — was invited to form the government. He did so with external support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the communist parties led by Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Singh, however, ran into trouble with his allies during Advani's Rath Yatra, when the former supported the BJP leader's arrest when his procession entered Bihar, then under Lalu Prasad Yadav's governance. Chandra Shekhar broke away and with Congress support became the 9th Indian PM, but this too did not last amid allegations that his government was spying on Rajiv Gandhi.
In the next Lok Sabha polls Congress again returned to power, with P V Narasimha Rao becoming the PM.
Though BJP managed to win the most seats in the 1996 elections, the government formed under Vajpayee was short lived, making way for the United Front to secure Parliamentary majority, with H D Deve Gowda of Janata Dal becoming the PM. In 1997 Inder Kumar Gujral succeeded him, but due to governmental instability, elections had to be held again in 1998.
This too was won by the BJP which formed a coalition with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). However, the NDA — under which they had formed the alliance — lost the support of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in April 1999, forcing the need for fresh elections.
The BJP won the 1999 elections too with help of the NDA bloc which managed to finish a full term under Vajpayee's leadership, becoming the first non-INC government to do so.
Congress returned to power in the 2004 and 2009 elections, after which 2014 saw the Modi wave, which has continued since then, and the saffron party will hope that it does so again when the results are declared for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on June 4.