General elections were held in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
on 22 and 26 November 1989 to elect the members of the
ninth Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...
.
The incumbent
Indian National Congress (Indira)
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...
government under the premiership of
Rajiv Gandhi lost its mandate, even though it was still the largest single party in the Lok Sabha.
V. P. Singh, the leader of the second largest party
Janata Dal (which also headed the
National Front) was invited by the President of India to form the government. The government was formed with outside support from the
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...
and Communist parties led by
CPI(M).
V. P. Singh was sworn in as the seventh
Prime Minister of India
The prime minister of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Union Council of Ministers, Council of Ministers, despite the president of ...
on 2 December 1989.
Background
The 1989 elections were held after the Lok Sabha
elected in 1984 completed its five-year term. Although
Rajiv Gandhi had won the 1984 elections by an unprecedented landslide (mainly due to an overwhelming outpour of
popular grief for to
his mother's assassination), by 1989 he was trying to fight off scandals that had marred his administration.
The
Bofors scandal, Gandhi's supposed attempt at shielding
Adil Shahryar, who had been involved in the
1984 Bhopal tragedy, allegations of
Muslim appeasement in the wake of the
Shah Bano case, rising
insurgency in Assam,
insurrection in Punjab, Indian involvement in the
Sri Lankan civil war were just some of the problems that stared at his government. Rajiv's biggest critic was
Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who held the portfolios of the finance ministry and the defence ministry in the government.
But Singh was soon sacked from the Cabinet and he then resigned from his memberships in the Congress and the Lok Sabha. He formed the
Jana Morcha with
Arun Nehru and
Arif Mohammad Khan and re-entered the Lok Sabha as an Independent MP from
Allahabad
Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benar ...
. Witnessing V. P. Singh's meteoric rise on national stage, Rajiv tried to counter him with another prominent Rajput stalwart
Satyendra Narain Singh but failed eventually.
On 11 October 1988, the birth anniversary of
Jayprakasha Narayan, V. P Singh made Jana Morcha merge with the
Janata Party & some of its breakaway factions like the
Janata Party (Secular),
Lok Dal
Lokdal or Lok Dal is an Indian political party based on agriculture policies, founded by former Prime Minister Charan Singh. It was founded on 26 September 1979 by merging Janata Party (Secular), Socialist Party (Limaye) and Orissa Janata Party ...
&
Congress (Jagjivan) to form the
Janata Dal. Singh then formed the National Front consisting of the Janata Dal,
Congress (Socialist) of
Sarat Chandra Sinha,
TDP of
N. T. Rama Rao,
DMK of
M. Karunanidhi &
AGP of
Prafulla Mahanta. The National Front also received outside support of
Lal Krishna Advani from the
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...
(which had also been formed out of the Janata Party) &
Jyoti Basu from the
Communist Party of India (Marxist).
To remove the allegations of Muslim appeasement against the Congress (I) party, Rajiv Gandhi took the step of unlocking the gates of the
disputed Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya in 1986, which inadvertently caused increased public consciousness about the dispute over the site. The BJP was able to galvanize significant support from the country's Hindu majority towards itself by its electoral promise of constructing a
Hindu temple
A Hindu temple, also known as Mandir, Devasthanam, Pura, or Kovil, is a sacred place where Hindus worship and show their devotion to Hindu deities, deities through worship, sacrifice, and prayers. It is considered the house of the god to who ...
at the site after
tearing down the mosque.
Voting was not held in
Assam due to rising unrest and a rebellion of
Bodos, culminating into a massacre of 535 people at
Gohpur. The
Union territory of
Goa, Daman and Diu was split into
Goa and
Daman & Diu with Goa retaining its two seats and the latter gaining a seat, resulting in the total number of Lok Sabha seats increasing by one to a total of 543. As elections were not held in Assam, only 529 seats were contested.
Results
Aftermath
V. P. Singh, who was the head of the Janata Dal, was chosen leader of the National Front government with outside support of the BJP & CPI(M). The alliance broke down after Singh supported Bihar's Chief Minister
Lalu Prasad Yadav's step to arrest Advani in
Samastipur to stop his
Ram Rath Yatra, which was going to the
Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya on 23 October 1990. Following this incident, BJP withdrew their support to Singh government, causing them to lose parliamentary
vote of confidence on 7 November 1990.
Chandra Shekhar broke away from the Janata Dal with 64 MPs and formed the
Samajwadi Janata Party in 1990. He got outside support from the Congress(I) and became the 8th Prime Minister of India. He finally resigned on 21 June 1991, after the Congress(I) withdrew its support alleging that the Chandra Shekhar government was spying on Rajiv Gandhi.
See also
*
V. P. Singh ministry
*
Chandra Shekhar ministry
*
List of members of the 9th Lok Sabha
*
Election Commission of India
*
1987 Indian presidential election
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
*
{{Indian elections
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry.
In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...
General elections in India