India 1977-present

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Behold!

_{State boundaries are those of 2004 not 1977 but whatevers.}

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In 1980 the voters of Rae Bareli had a choice between Indira Gandhi and Vijaya Raje Scindia... lol

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The constituency with the longest win record for any party is Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh) which has voted Congress at every election since the first post-Independence poll in 1951 (not quite a perfect record of representation though; BJP won it in a by-election in 1997). Rather aptly it is located pretty much slap bang in the middle of the country. I think the second is Ponnani (Kerala) which has been held by the (no, really) Muslim League since 1977 although only just in 2014 (mind you boundary changes mean that part of the 1977-2009 seat is in the created-for-2009 Malappuram seat: which is a lot safer).

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What exactly did Janata stand for?

Opposition to 'That Woman' and not a lot else. So it included the future BJP, the entire oppositionist Socialist tradition, vast numbers of disillusioned Congress veterans and more besides. The party fell apart within about thirty seconds of taking office.

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Public anger at The Emergency was particularly intense there (Sanjay's insane campaign of forced sterilisations being a big factor) and the economic situation was worse.

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In which Rajiv Gandhi waves Indira Gandhi's bloody sari with enough apparent enthusiasm to secure the last ever Congress landslide (and a few thousand dead Sikhs in Delhi). Elections in Punjab and Assam were delayed because violence. This was the last election until 2014 in which a single party won a majority of seats and the first fought by the BJP in its present form. Oppositeland in Andhra Pradesh where the TDP repeated its state-level landslide and heavily defeated the previously absolutely dominant (even in 1977) Congress.

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Not something you necessarily expect to read about the world's largest democracy

It gets 'better': you know what triggered The Emergency? An election petition resulted in Indira being unseated as it was proved she'd broken some electoral laws. She pretty much immediately responded to this by announcing rule by decree and jailing opposition leaders.

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In which the inability of Rajiv Gandhi to, you know, do his job effectively results in Congress getting a pasting across North India and losing office. His defeat marked the last time that a member of The Family would hold the office of Prime Minister (though not the last time that a member of The Family would hold power). The largest opposition party was Janata Dal (i.e. broadly speaking the socialist element of the Janata Party) and it was this party that formed a government under V.P. Singh. Unfortunately while Janata Dal was much more ideologically coherent than Janata it was dominated by Big Dramatic Personalities with a propensity for Big Dramatic Fallouts and you can probably guess what happened next... anyway this was also the first election in which the BJP established itself as a major party (and quite a few of the seats they gained in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh they have never lost) and the first in which the BSP, Shiv Sena and JMM won seats. No election in Assam (again).

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What was going on in Assam exactly during this period?

Violence and political instability. So earlier in the 80s you had this thing, while later in the 80s (and in the 90s) it was more an issue of multiple separatist groups.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_scandal

roflmao

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Not sure why that is so funny.

Voters: chose between dynasties!

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Also the JD government fell apart mostly because INC did well enough in 1989 that JD had a majority only if you add to JD seats those of BJP and Left Front.  In other words JD had to please it own internal factions AND BJP AND Left Front at the same time.  To break out of this JD tried to polarized the electorate along OBC vs non-OBC terms trying to become the OBC.  This lead the BJP to go for a counter-polarization of Hindus vs non-Hindus.  These cross pressures lead to the fall of the the JD government.  Chandra Shekhar merely came in to pick up the pieces to do a deal with INC to form a government.  He did not break the JD government.  It was broken by BJP and Left Front already.

Yep, though I was commenting more on why JD splintered as a party than why its government fell.

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In which sh!t got real. The nasty business over Ayodhya and the attempt by the Janata Dal government to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission meant that communal and caste tensions were both running a few degrees over boiling point, the country was in the grips of an economic crisis, there was a civil war in the Punjab and an intensification of the grim situation in Kashmir... and then just as the first phase of voting had concluded the LTTE blew up Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally. Senior Congress figures then proceeded to wave about Rajiv's bloody... um... shoe?... and won enough seats to form a minority government. Unsurprisingly there was a notable difference between the electoral performance of Congress in those areas that had already voted at the time of the assassination and those which voted after. No election in Kashmir and the 'election' in Punjab was more of an electoral type event held some time later. The minority Congress administration of P.V. Narashima Rao was to prove to be one of the most consequential of any post Independence government.

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In which the electorate rewards the Rao government for dismantling the dysfunctional Nehruvian economic system by inflicting such a heavy defeat so as to break forever the spell of Congress dominance over the political landscape. A really important election, this one, though what really did for Congress was a pile-up of corruption scandals (suddenly this sort of thing seemed to stick in the way that it hadn't when The Family was in charge) and a complete breakdown of party discipline leading to the start of the many party splits that have bedeviled the party ever since. But if Congress clearly lost the election, who had won? Backed by a rather odd collection of allies (something about to become A Theme in Indian politics), the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the first from his political tradition to rise to that office... but only lasted thirteen days. A ramshackle coalition government - the somewhat ironically named United Front - was formed and led by first H. Deve Gowda and then I.K Gujral it managed to stagger on for a few years until it collapsed under rather acrimonious circumstances.