2004 Indian general election
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General elections were held in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the
14th Lok Sabha The 14th Lok Sabha (17 May 2004 – 18 May 2009) was convened after the 2004 Indian general election held in four phases during 20 April – 10 May 2004, which led to the formation of first Manmohan Singh ministry (2004–2009). Indian Nation ...
. Seven states also held assembly elections to elect
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
governments. They were the first elections fully carried out with
electronic voting machines An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: '' optical scanning'' and '' direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning In an optical scan voting system, or marksense, each voter's choices ...
. On 13 May the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...
(BJP), the lead party of the National Democratic Alliance conceded defeat. The
Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...
, which had governed India for all but five years from independence until 1996, returned to power after a record eight years out of office. It was able to put together a comfortable majority of more than 335 members out of 543 with the help of its allies. The 335 members included both the Congress-led
United Progressive Alliance United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single party ...
, the governing coalition formed after the election, as well as external support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Kerala Congress (KC) and the Left Front. After facing criticism from her own party and from the country
Congress President The President of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India. Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members ...
Sonia Gandhi asked the 22nd
Finance Minister A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
Manmohan Singh, an economist, to head the new government. Singh had previously served in the Congress government of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, when he was seen as one of the architects of India's first economic liberalisation plan, which staved off an impending monetary crisis. Despite the fact that Singh had never won a Lok Sabha seat, his considerable goodwill and Sonia Gandhi's nomination won him the support of the UPA allies and the Left Front. The elections saw the evolution of a
Two-party system A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually refe ...
with political competition primarily concentrated between the UPA and NDA.


Background

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Atal Bihari Vajpayee had recommended premature dissolution of the
13th Lok Sabha The 13th Lok Sabha (10 October 1999 – 6 February 2004) is the thirteenth session of the Lok Sabha (House of the People, or lower house in the Parliament of India). It was convened after 1999 Indian general election held during September–Oc ...
(in accordance with a provision of the
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...
) to pave the way for early elections apparently in view of the recent good showing of the BJP in the Assembly elections in four states.


Organisation

The election dates for the parliamentary elections were: *20 April – 141 constituencies *26 April – 137 constituencies *5 May – 83 constituencies *10 May – 182 constituencies Counting began simultaneously on 13 May. Over 370 million of the 675 million eligible citizens voted, with election violence claiming 48 lives, less than half the number killed during the 1999 election. The Indian elections were held in phases in order to maintain law and order. A few states considered sensitive areas required deployment of the armed forces. The average enrolment of voters in each constituency is 1.2 million, although the largest constituency has 3.1 million. The Election Commission of India is responsible for deciding the dates and conducting elections according to constitutional provisions. The Election Commission employed more than a million
electronic voting Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone ''electronic voting machines'' ( ...
machines for these elections. According to the magazine ''
India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new o ...
'', 115.62 billion rupees were expected to have been spent in campaigning for the elections by all political parties combined. Most of the money was spent on the people involved in the election. The Election Commission limited poll expenses to Rs. 2.5 million per constituency. Thus, the actual spending is expected to have been approximately ten times the limit. About 6.5 billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on mobilising 150,000 vehicles. About a billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on helicopters and aircraft.


Pre-poll alliances

In these elections, compared to all the Lok Sabha elections of the 1990s, the battle was more of a head-to-head contest in the sense that there was no viable third front alternative. Largely the contest was between BJP and its allies on one hand and Congress and its allies on the other. The situation did, however, show large regional differences. The BJP fought the elections as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), although some of its seat-sharing agreements were made with strong regional parties outside of the NDA such as
Telugu Desam Party The Telugu Desam Party (; TDP) is an Indian regional political party operating in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at the state and central level. Since its founding by N. T. Rama Rao (often referred to as NTR) on 29 March 1982, the party has fo ...
(TDP) in
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
and
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the  state of Tamil Nadu and the  union territory of  Puducherry. It is a Dravidian party founded by the former chief mi ...
(AIADMK) in
Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
. Ahead of the elections there were attempts to form a Congress-led national level joint opposition front. In the end, an agreement could not be reached, but on regional level alliances between Congress and regional parties were made in several states. This was the first time that Congress contested with that type of alliances in a parliamentary election. The left parties, most notably the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the na ...
and the Communist Party of India, contested on their own in their strongholds
West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...
,
Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...
and
Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
, confronting both Congress and NDA forces. In several other states, such as
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
and
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
, they took part in seat sharings with Congress. In
Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
they were part of the
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; DMK) is a political party based in the state of Tamil Nadu where it is currently the ruling party having a comfortable majority without coalition support and the union territory of Puducherry where it is curre ...
(DMK)-led Democratic Progressive Alliance. Two parties refused to go along with either Congress or BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party. Both are based in
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, the largest state of India (in terms of population). Congress made several attempts to form alliances with them, but in vain. Many believed that they would become the 'spoilers' that would rob Congress of an electoral victory. The result was a four-cornered contest in UP, which didn't really hurt or benefit Congress or BJP significantly.


Forecast and campaigns

Most analysts believed the NDA would win the elections. This assessment was also supported by opinion polls. The economy had shown steady growth in the last few months and the disinvestment of government owned production units (a continuation of India's liberalisation policies initiated in the early 1990s) had been on track. The Foreign Exchange Reserves of India stood at more than US$100 billion (7th largest in the world and a record for India). The service sector had also generated a lot of jobs. The party was supposed to have been riding on a wave of the so-called "feel good factor", typified by its promotional campaign "
India Shining 1. India Shining (Hindi: भारत उदय ) was a marketing slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India in ''2004.'' 2. The slogan was popularised by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2004 Indi ...
". In the past, BJP has largely been seen as a hard-line
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
party with close ties with the Hindu organisation the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...
(RSS). Over the years, the party has slightly distanced itself from its ''
Hindutva Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...
'' policies, a change that is being questioned after the party's poor showing in the elections. These elections were marked by the campaign's emphasis on economic gains. From the last few elections, BJP had realised that its voter base had reached a ceiling and had concentrated on pre-poll rather than post-poll alliances. The foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi also constituted part of the NDA's campaign.


Exit polls


Results


Region-wise results


By states and territories


States


Territories


Analysis

Though pre-poll predictions were for an overwhelming majority for the BJP, the exit polls (immediately after the elections and before the counting began) predicted a
hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...
. However, even the exit polls could only indicate the general trend and nowhere close to the final figures. There is also the general perception that as soon as the BJP started realising that events might not proceed entirely in its favour, it changed the focus of its campaign from ''India Shining'' to issues of stability. The Congress, who was regarded as "old-fashioned" by the ruling BJP, was largely backed by poor, rural, lower-caste and minority voters that did not participate in the economic boom of previous years that created a wealthy middle class and thus achieved its overwhelming victory.


Impact

The rout of the ruling parties in the states of
Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
and
Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
in the general elections led to calls for the dissolution of the governments of these states. The stock market (
Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange. It is located on Dalal Street in Mumbai. Established in 1875 by cotton merchant Premchand Roychand, a Jain businessman, it is the oldest stock exchange i ...
) fell in the week prior to the announcement of the results due to fears of an unstable coalition. As soon as counting began, however, it became clear that the Congress coalition was headed for a sizeable lead over the NDA and the market surged, only to crash the following day when the left parties, whose support would be required for government formation, announced that it was their intention to do away with the disinvestment ministry. Following this, Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister (in office 2004–14) and the prime architect of the economic liberalisation of the early 1990s, hurried to reassure investors that the new government would strive to create a business-friendly climate.


Events

*13 May - The Congress and allies win a plurality of seats in the Lok Sabha (219 seats against 188 for the BJP). *13 May - Counting of votes in the parliamentary elections begins. *11 May - Congress wins the Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh by 2/3 majority. *10 May - The fourth and final phase of elections comes to an end. Results will come out for 542 of the 543 parliament seats with elections to be held again in
Chhapra Chhapra is a city and headquarters of the Saran district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is situated near the junction of the Ghaghara River and the Ganges River. Chhapra grew in importance as a river-based market in the 18th century when t ...
. *5 May - Third phase of polling comes to an end with the ruling coalition government gaining seats according to exit polls but still off the victory target. Reports of
booth capturing Booth capturing, or booth looting, is electoral fraud in which party loyalists or hired criminals "capture" a polling booth and vote in place of legitimate voters to ensure that a particular candidate wins. It is a form of voter suppression. ...
in Chhapra capture headlines. *26 April - Second phase of elections sees 55-60% polling. This is the final phase for assembly elections. Polling covers 136 parliamentary constituencies in 11 states. The share market starts to crash as it becomes evident that the NDA government may find it hard to come back to power—raising doubts about the continuation of economic reforms initiated by the NDA government. *22 April -
Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...
, where polling was delayed because of a local holiday, votes for its two MPs. A turnout of close to 60% is reported, despite calls for abstention made by separatist militants. *20 April - The first phase of the vote is held, with average turnouts of between 50% and 55%. Voting is reported as brisk, and the day unfolds relatively smoothly, albeit with some glitches reported with the electronic voting machines. Isolated violent incidents take place in Kashmir,
Jammu Jammu is the winter capital of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is the headquarters and the largest city in Jammu district of the union territory. Lying on the banks of the river Tawi, the city of Jammu, with an area of ...
,
Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...
, and
Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . I ...
. *8 April - The NDA's top leaders meet in
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...
to adopt its manifesto for the elections, "Agenda for Development and Good Governance". *7 April -
Ram Jethmalani Ram Boolchand Jethmalani (14 September 1923 – 8 September 2019) was an Indian lawyer and politician. He served as India's Union minister of law and justice, as chairman of the Indian Bar Council, and as the president of the Supreme Court B ...
says he will contest the elections against Prime Minister Vajpayee as an independent candidate from
Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
. He claims he will be supported by the Congress and some other parties. *6 April - The BJP and the
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the  state of Tamil Nadu and the  union territory of  Puducherry. It is a Dravidian party founded by the former chief mi ...
(AIADMK) tell the Election Commission that they will not stop raising the issue of the foreign origin of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. *4 April - A
First Information Report __NOTOC__ A first information report (FIR) is a document prepared by police organisations in Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan when they receive information about the commissio ...
is lodged against
external affairs A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...
minister
Yashwant Sinha Yashwant Sinha (, born 6 November 1937) is an Indian administrator and politician. He served as the Minister of Finance from 1990 until 1991 under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and again from March 1998 to July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal B ...
for alleged violation of election
code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization. Companies' codes of conduct A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...
during a poll meeting in Ranchi. Besides Sinha, FIRs were lodged against three other BJP leaders who participated in the meeting.


See also

* 2004 elections in India * Election Commission of India


Further reading

*Shastri, Sandeep, K.C. Suri & Yogendra Yadav (2009) (ed.). ''Electoral Politics in Indian States : Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and Beyond'', New Delhi : Oxford University Press,


References


External links


Election Commission of IndiaParliament of IndiaReport from Mumbai, Gujarat during 2004 election
{{Indian elections 2004 elections in India
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...