Indian general election, 1977

Indian general election, 1977

16–20 March 1977[1]

All 542 seats in the Lok Sabha 272 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader Morarji Desai Indira Gandhi Party Janata Party INC Alliance Janata alliance INC+ Leader's seat Surat Rae Bareli (lost) Seats won 345 189 Seat change 233 217 Percentage 51.89% 40.98% Swing 27.55% 2.7%

Prime Minister before election Indira Gandhi INC(I) Subsequent Prime Minister Morarji Desai Janata Party

In a major turn of events, the ruling Congress lost control of India for the first time in independent India in the Indian general election, 1977. The hastily formed, Janata alliance of parties opposed to the ruling Congress party, won 298 seats. Morarji Desai was chosen as the leader of the alliance in the newly formed parliament and thus became India's first non-Congress Prime Minister on 24 March. The Congress lost nearly 200 seats. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her powerful son Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats.

The election came after the end of The Emergency that Prime Minister Gandhi had imposed in 1975; it effectively suspended democracy, suppressed the opposition, and took control of the media with authoritarian measures. The opposition called for a restoration of democracy and Indians saw the election results as a repudiation of the Emergency.^[2]

Background

India held general elections to the 6th Lok Sabha. This sixth general elections, which were conducted for 542 seats from 542 constituencies, represented 27 Indian states and union territories.^[3] These 542 constituencies remained same until Indian general elections, 2004 for the 14th Lok Sabha.

The Emergency declared by the Indira Gandhi led Congress government was the core issue in the 1977 elections. Civil liberties were suspended during the national emergency from 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977 and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assumed vast powers.

Gandhi had become extremely unpopular for her decision and paid for it during the elections. Mrs. Gandhi, on 23 January, called for fresh elections and released all political prisoners. Four Opposition parties, the Congress (Organisation), the Jan Sangh, the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party, decided to fight the elections under a single banner called the Janata alliance. The alliance used the symbol allocated to Bhartiya Lok dal as their symbol on the ballot papers.

Janata Party Election Symbol

The votes were cast from 16 to 19 March. The counting of votes started on 20-March and the results started coming in from that day's evening.

The Janata alliance reminded voters of the excesses and human rights violations during the Emergency, like compulsory sterilisation and imprisonment of political leaders. The Janata campaign said the elections would decide whether India would have "democracy or dictatorship." The Congress looked jittery. Agriculture and Irrigation Minister Babu Jagjivan Ram quit the party in the first week of February; other notable Congress stalwarts who crossed the floor with Jagjivan Ram before the election were Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy.

Voter behaviour

The elections in the largest state Uttar Pradesh, historically a Congress stronghold, turned against Mrs. Gandhi. Dhanagare says the structural reasons included the emergence of a strong and united opposition, disunity and weariness within the Congress, an effective opposition and the failure of Mrs. Gandhi in controlling the mass media, which was under censorship during the Emergency. The structural factors allowed voters to express their grievances, notably their resentment of the emergency and its authoritarian and repressive policies. One grievance often mentioned was the 'Nasbandi' (vasectomy) campaign in rural areas. The middle class also emphasised on the curbing of freedom of speech throughout the country.^[4] Meanwhile, Congress hit an all-time low in West Bengal, according to the Gangulys, because of poor discipline and factionalism among Congress activists as well as numerous defections that weakened the party. Opponents emphasised the issues of corruption within the Congress and appealed to a deep desire by the voters for fresh leadership.^[5] The Congress, however, did well in Southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The results were mixed in the Western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, however, the Janata Front won all the seats in Mumbai.

Results

Results by alliance

Source: Keesings^[6]

Results by Party

Results by State

(There is only partial data in this section to begin with. It will be completed by and by, as time permits.)
Andhra Pradesh: Total: 42. Congress: 40 or 41 out of 42, Janata Party: 1
Bihar: Janata Party + Allies: 54 out of 54. Congress: Zero
Delhi. Janata Party: 7 out of 7.
Gujarat. Total: 26. Janata Party: 20, Congress: 6
Madhya Pradesh. Total: 40. Janata: 37, RPK: 1, Congress: 1 (Chhindwara), Ind: 1 (Madhavrao Scindia from Guna)
Maharashtra. Total: 48. Janata Party + Allies (CPM, PWP, et al.): 28/48, Congress: 20
Orissa. Total: 21. Janata Party + CPM: 15+1, Congress: 4
Punjab: Akali Dal + Janata + Alliance: 13 out of 13
Rajasthan. Janata: 24/25, Congress: 1.
Uttar Pradesh: Janata Party + Allies: 85 out of 85. Congress: Zero
West Bengal. Janata Alliance: 38/42 (Janata: 15, CPM: 17, Forward Block: 3, RSP: 3), Congress: 3, Ind: 1

See also

• Election Commission of India
• Indian presidential election, 1974

References

Further reading

• Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (2008) pp 491–518
• Klieman, Aaron S. "Indira's India: Democracy and Crisis Government," Political Science Quarterly (1981) 96#2 pp. 241–259 in JSTOR
• Roy, Ramashray; Sheth, D. L. "The 1977 Lok Sabha Election Outcome: The Salience of Changing Voter Alignments Since 1969," Political Science Review (1978), Vol. 17 Issue 3/4, pp 51–63

Elections in India
General elections	1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1945 1951–52 1957 1962 1967 1971 1977 1980 1984 1989 1991 1996 1998 1999 2004 2009 2014 next
State elections	1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1937 1946 1952 1954 1955 1957 1960 1961 1962 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1974 1975 1977 1978 1979 1980 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
See also: Elections in Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Odisha Puducherry Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Telangana Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand West Bengal

The Emergency of 1975–77
Personalities	Indira Gandhi Jayaprakash Narayan Siddhartha Shankar Ray Jivatram Kripalani Morarji Desai Atal Bihari Vajpayee K. Kamaraj M. G. Ramachandran M. Karunanidhi C. Achutha Menon K. Karunakaran Harcharan Singh Longowal Lal Krishna Advani Charan Singh Jagjivan Ram Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Sanjay Gandhi Pranab Mukherjee Jagmohan Bansi Lal Zail Singh Devakanta Barua Jagmohanlal Sinha Hans Raj Khanna H. N. Bahuguna Raj Narain George Fernandes Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Organisations	Indian National Congress (R) Indian National Congress Janata Morcha Janata Party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Dravidar Kazhagam Indian National Congress (Organisation) Shiromani Akali Dal Bharatiya Jana Sangh Swatantra Party Bharatiya Lok Dal Socialist Party of India Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Communist Party of India (Marxist) People's Union for Civil Liberties
Events	State of Emergency in India State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain 38th Amendment 39th Amendment 42nd Amendment Turkman gate demolition and rioting Baroda dynamite case Shah Commission Maintenance of Internal Security Act Rajan case Indian general election, 1977