General election in India 1980
The parliamentary elections in India in 1980 took place over two days on January 3 and 6, 1980. 529 members of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, were elected . The election ended with a clear victory for the Congress Party led by Indira Gandhi .
prehistory
The choice was an early choice. The legislative period of the Lok Sabha elected in the previous 1977 election would actually have ended in 1982. However, in the course of the legislative period the ruling Janata Party government began to deteriorate , which ultimately led to the government becoming completely incapacitated and new elections had to be announced by President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy .
The Janata Party (JNP) won a solid majority in the 1977 elections. In the course of her government, however, it became apparent that the JNP, which was only founded in 1977, was not a homogeneous party, but consisted of many diverging interest groups. The 79-year-old Morarji Desai , elected Prime Minister in 1977, was a person of integrity who, as a pious Hindu, followed an ascetic lifestyle in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and was absolutely incorruptible. However, he did not have the leadership skills to hold such a heterogeneous party together and bring it on track. The rivalry between Desai and Charan Singh , who was a member of the cabinet first as interior minister until June 1978 and then from January 1979 as finance minister, proved particularly destructive . Singh had raised his own hopes for the post of prime minister and therefore worked more or less towards the destabilization and replacement of Desai.
Economic crisis
The JNP government gave a particularly unfavorable picture in the field of economic policy. The declared aim of the JNP government was to promote the middle class of farmers and to create a labor-intensive small-scale industry in the countryside that would eliminate rampant underemployment and unemployment. In addition, spending on agriculture was increased significantly. However, there was a lack of accompanying medium- to long-term structural measures, so that these funds essentially fizzled out as tax and clientele gifts with no lasting effect, but led to a significant deficit in the state budget as a side effect due to the increase in expenditure. The economy of India, which was still largely controlled by a planned economy, fell into a crisis due to a lack of and incompetent management (especially in the field of energy supply, partly related to the 1979 oil crisis ), and India's economic growth fell below zero percent in 1979. Brand. In addition, the shortage of goods due to the economic crisis and simultaneous tax increases by the government to cover the public deficit fueled inflation, which was almost 20% in the same year. Unemployment rose sharply and there was social unrest, which the government responded to with police measures.
Split of the Janata Party, Desais resigns
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Despite the critical economic escalation, the Janata Party government was more concerned with itself than with actual government work. Charan Singh's resignation from the party on July 15, 1979 and the simultaneous resignation of 13 ministers in Desai's cabinet deprived it of its parliamentary basis and Moraji Desai resigned from the office of prime minister on July 28, 1979. President Reddy then commissioned Charan Singh, who in the meantime with his supporters from the Janata Party had founded a new party, the Janata Party (Secular) (renamed Lok Dal a little later ), with the formation of a new government. Before his political maneuvers, Singh had agreed with Indira Gandhi and had her parliamentary support assured. Here, however, he had thoroughly underestimated the political finesse of Indira. One day before the planned vote of confidence by the new Singh government , Indira Gandhi let him know that he could not count on the support of her party. The Singh government was now without a parliamentary majority, so that Singh saw no other option than to ask President Reddy to dissolve parliament and call new elections. This also happened on August 22, 1979 and the Singh government remained in office until the election.
Developments in the Congress Party from 1977 to 1980
After the devastating electoral defeat of the Congress Party in 1977, Indira Gandhi's opponents, whom she blamed for the defeat, got a boost within the Congress Party. Congress leaders such as YB Chavan , Vasantdada Patil , Sardar Swaran Singh and Congress President Kasu Brahmananda Reddy turned against them, and on January 1, 1978, Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Congress party.
Thereupon Indira Gandhi gathered her followers and announced on January 2, 1978 in Delhi the founding of a new party Indian National Congress (Indira) , in short Congress (I) , or INC (I). As a new party symbol, the Congress (I) chose the outstretched right hand, which is still the symbol of the Congress party today. Of a total of 153 MPs from the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha, about half (77) went over to Indira's new party, while the other half (76) stayed with the old Congress Party under Reddy. In the parliamentary elections in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in March 1978, however, it was shown that Indira's party could get the majority of the former congressional voters behind it. Of the 224 constituencies of Karnataka, Congress (I) won 149, and of the 294 constituencies of Andhra Pradesh 175, while the old Reddy Congress won only 2 and 30 respectively. The Janata Party came to 59 and 60 constituencies. In a by-election in the Chikmagalur constituency in Karnataka in November 1978, Indira was also re-elected to the Lok Sabha.
In the following time Indira was able to further expand her position in view of the obvious weaknesses of the Janata government. It became dangerous for them when the Janata government set about redeeming its election promise and criminally processing the events of the state of emergency from 1975-77 . Indira Gandhi was arrested on October 3, 1978, but was released the next day because the charges were so poorly worded that the warrant was overturned by an Indian court. From December 19-26, 1978, Indira was detained again for a week, but then had to be released. Indira used the events skillfully and very effectively in the media to portray herself as an innocent woman persecuted by the government and her popularity increased as a result. There was no further serious legal activity against them as the Janata government was meanwhile in increasing dissolution.
On June 25, 1979, due to personal differences between Indira and the Chief Minister of Karnataka D. Devaraj Urs, Urs was expelled from the party and a faction split off from Indira's Congress (I). Urs, who had previously been party president of Congress (I), criticized above all the great influence that Sanjay Gandhi had and accused Indira of not having learned anything from her electoral defeat and of maintaining an authoritarian style of leadership that did not turn into a Democracy fit. The split-off faction formed the Indian National Congress (Urs) , or Congress (U) for short, and a little later united with the remaining congress party, which was now led by YB Chavan. Prominent members of Congress (U) were Yashwantrao Chavan , Sharad Pawar and AK Antony .
Election campaign
Three groups faced each other in the election campaign:
- an alliance of Charan Singh's Janata Party (Secular) , which was renamed Lok Dal shortly before the election , of the two communist parties ( Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India ) and the Congress (U). However, this alliance broke up shortly before the election date, so that the constituency agreements made became irrelevant.
- the Janata Party , which was led by Jagjivan Ram after Morarji Desai's resignation and entered into an alliance with the Tamil Nadu ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab .
- Indira Gandhis Congress (I) , who had allied themselves with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) from Tamil Nadu.
During the election campaign, the Janata Party and the coalition around Charan Singh's Lok Dal drew the horrific vision of a renewed dictatorship by Indira Gandhi, while the one with the slogan Save India (“Save India!”) Promised a rescue from the chaos of the Janata government. In her party's election campaign, which lasted 63 days, Indira Gandhi, now 62, had a workload that the journalists accompanying her could hardly keep up with. She gave up to 20 campaign speeches a day, attended around 600 major campaign events and covered a total of more than 60,000 kilometers on her way through 384 constituencies.
Election mode and election procedure
Like the previous elections, the election was based on relative majority voting . The boundaries of the 542 individual constituencies were redrawn by the Delimitation Commission of India before the previous 1977 election . In north-east India, due to the ethnic unrest that broke out there, an orderly course of the election could not be guaranteed, so that no election took place in a total of 12 of the 14 constituencies of the state of Assam and in the adjacent eastern constituency of Meghalaya . The total number of elected MPs was therefore only 529 instead of 542.
The unrest in Assam resulted from the confrontation of the native Assamese and mountain peoples with immigrant, often Muslim Bengali from Bangladesh . Between 1971 and 1981, of a population of 14.6 million, a total of 1.2 million people immigrated to Assam. As the number of registered voters in Assam rose from 6.5 million in 1972 to 8.7 million in 1979, the suspicion arose that many immigrants had been entered on the electoral roll. The political agitation of the so-called " Assam Movement " was mainly carried out by Assamese students and members of the middle classes in Assam. The central demand was the return or expulsion of “illegal immigrants”. The unrest continued even after the elections, with the Assamese leaders mainly accusing the Congress Party of not doing enough against the immigrants, who, as Muslims, often leaned towards the Congress party politically.
| State or Union Territory |
electoral legitimate |
Voters | electoral participation |
Invalid votes |
Number of polling stations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andhra Pradesh | 30.497.603 | 17,363,759 | 56.93% | 2.63% | 41,308 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 266,650 | 182.909 | 68.60% | 5.10% | 920 |
| Assam | 1,209,486 | 645,560 | 53.37% | 1.80% | 1,507 |
| Bihar | 39,713,395 | 20,600,067 | 51.87% | 1.71% | 54,520 |
| Goa , Daman and Diu | 522,652 | 363.126 | 69.48% | 2.81% | 769 |
| Gujarat | 16,499,141 | 9,141,539 | 55.41% | 3.15% | 20,937 |
| Haryana | 6,912,965 | 4,476,526 | 64.76% | 2.13% | 7,652 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 2,175,326 | 1,277,049 | 58.71% | 1.82% | 3,742 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 2,867,637 | 1,377,988 | 48.05% | 2.97% | 4,364 |
| Karnataka | 19,562,924 | 11,289,532 | 57.71% | 3.09% | 24,962 |
| Kerala | 13,266,764 | 8,246,713 | 62.16% | 0.95% | 14,153 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 25.186.438 | 13,058,719 | 51.85% | 3.47% | 31,670 |
| Maharashtra | 33,485,064 | 19,018,800 | 56.80% | 2.78% | 39,351 |
| Manipur | 909.282 | 742,442 | 81.65% | 3.64% | 1,466 |
| Meghalaya | 225,582 | 115,575 | 51.23% | 4.17% | 354 |
| Mizoram | 230.795 | 129,533 | 56.12% | 0.94% | 368 |
| Nagaland | 460.083 | 294.009 | 63.90% | 2.66% | 955 |
| Orissa | 13,847,828 | 6,413,550 | 46.31% | 4.03% | 16,917 |
| Punjab | 9,741,135 | 6.103.192 | 62.65% | 2.12% | 10,606 |
| Rajasthan | 17,764,848 | 9,709,582 | 54.66% | 2.42% | 21,826 |
| Sikkim | 118.224 | 52,895 | 44.74% | 2.63% | 216 |
| Tamil Nadu | 28,113,893 | 18,767,818 | 66.76% | 1.89% | 32,604 |
| Tripura | 1,057,506 | 845.729 | 79.97% | 1.79% | 1,443 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 58.035.998 | 28,994,104 | 49.96% | 2.29% | 65,459 |
| West Bengal | 29,786,146 | 21,035,441 | 70.62% | 2.33% | 34,375 |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 96.084 | 81,146 | 84.45% | 2.77% | 222 |
| Chandigarh | 197.016 | 125,944 | 63.93% | 1.45% | 214 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli | 45,874 | 33,378 | 72.76% | 6.69% | 62 |
| Delhi | 3,069,636 | 1,991,869 | 64.89% | 1.38% | 3,397 |
| Lakshadweep | 20,117 | 17,860 | 88.78% | 0.49% | 27 |
| Pondicherry | 319.237 | 256,539 | 80.36% | 3.45% | 447 |
| total | 356.205.329 | 202,752,893 | 56.92% | 2.43% | 436.813 |
- ↑ In Assam, due to the ethnic unrest there, it was only possible to vote in the two constituencies of Silchar and Karimganj ; there was no election in the remaining 12 Assamese constituencies. The figures given here refer only to these two constituencies.
- ↑ In Meghalaya, due to ethnic unrest, it was only possible to vote in the Tura constituency; there was no election in the Shillong constituency . The figures given here refer to the Tura constituency only .
Overall, the turnout was 3.5 percentage points below that of the 1977 election, which was possibly also an expression of a certain disaffection with politics.
Result
Overall result
As expected, the election ended with significant gains for Indira's Congress Party, which became the strongest party again (in the previous election in 1977 it had lost this position to the Janata Party) and achieved a gain of more than 8%. Due to the current electoral law and favored by the splintering of the opposition parties, Indira's party gained a two-thirds majority in the newly elected Lok Sabha. The Janata Party lost more than half of its votes and was reduced to approximately a tenth of its previous mandates. Charan Singhs Lok Dal won 41 out of 529 constituencies. The communist and left-wing socialist parties were able to gain votes and together won around 10% of the votes and seats. In their strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala , they won 38 out of 42 and 8 out of 20 constituencies. The Congress (U) won 13 constituencies. In Andhra Pradesh all constituencies went to Indira's Congress Party, and in the states of Orissa , Karnataka and Gujarat Congress (I) won all but one constituency. The only states in which Indira's Congress won less than 50% of the constituency seats were West Bengal, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir , as well as the small states of Tripura , Mizoram , Sikkim and Nagaland . Indira Gandhi was elected to the Lok Sabha both in the constituency of Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) and in the constituency of Medak (Andhra Pradesh) and accepted the mandate for Rae Bareli (such a double candidacy was possible according to the electoral code). Her son Sanjay Gandhi also won a parliamentary seat for the first time in the constituency of Amethi (Uttar Pradesh).
| Political party | Abbreviation | be right | Seats | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| number | % | +/- | number | +/- | % | ||
| Indian National Congress (I) | INC (I) | 84.455.313 | 42.69% | 8.17% | 353 | 199 | 66.7% |
| Janata party | JNP | 37.530.228 | 18.97% | 24.07% | 31 | 267 | 5.9% |
| Lok Dal | LKD | 18,574,696 | 9.39% | (New) | 41 | (New) | 7.8% |
| Communist Party of India (Marxist) | CPM | 12,352,331 | 6.24% | 1.95% | 37 | 15 | 7.0% |
| Indian National Congress (Urs) | INC (U) | 10,449,859 | 5.28% | (New) | 13 | (New) | 2.5% |
| Communist Party of India | CPI | 4,927,342 | 2.49% | 0.41% | 10 | 3 | 1.9% |
| All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | AIADMK | 4,674,064 | 2.36% | 0.17% | 2 | 16 | 0.4% |
| Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | DMK | 4,236,537 | 2.14% | 0.38% | 16 | 14 | 3.0% |
| Shiromani Akali Dal | SAD | 1,396,412 | 0.71% | 0.55% | 1 | 8 | 0.2% |
| Revolutionary Socialist Party | RSP | 1,285,517 | 0.65% | 0.20% | 4th | 0.8% | |
| All India Forward Bloc | AIFB | 1,011,564 | 0.51% | 0.17% | 3 | 0.6% | |
| Jammu & Kashmir National Conference | JKNC | 493.143 | 0.26% | 3 | 1 | 0.6% | |
| Muslim League | MUL | 475.507 | 0.24% | 0.06% | 2 | 0.4% | |
| Kerala Congress | KEC | 356.997 | 0.18% | 0.08% | 1 | 1 | 0.2% |
| Jharkhand party | JKP | 254,520 | 0.13% | 0.06% | 1 | 0.2% | |
| Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party | MGP | 127.188 | 0.06% | 1 | 0.2% | ||
| Sikkim Janata Parishad | SJP | 31,750 | 0.02% | (New) | 1 | (New) | 0.2% |
| Independent | Independent | 12,717,510 | 6.43% | 0.93% | 9 | 1.7% | |
| All other parties | 2,473,896 | 1.25% | 1.21% | 0 | 8 | 0% | |
| Valid votes | 197.824.274 | 100.0% | 529 | 13 | 100.0% | ||
| Registered voters / turnout | 356.205.329 | 56.92% | |||||
| Source: Election Commission of India | |||||||
- ↑ a b Regarding the gain and loss of seats, it must be taken into account that nationwide elections were only held in 529 of the 542 constituencies
- ↑ The Janata Party (JNP) was founded shortly before the last election in 1977. Formally, the founding parties were still run as separate parties by the Indian Election Commission. The results are summed up here.
- ↑ Lok Dal (LKD) was founded in 1979 by Charan Singh.
Results by state and union territories
The following table lists the electoral districts won by state / union territory.
After the election
On January 14, 1980, Indira Gandhi was sworn in as the new Prime Minister and her cabinet .
literature
- Clemens Jürgensmeier: The 7th parliamentary elections in India (I): A triumphant victory for Indira Gandhi? International Asia Forum, Vol. 12 (1981), No. 1, pp. 5-33. Link to the full text
- Myron Weiner: India at the Polls, 1980: A Study of the Parliamentary Elections . AEI Press, 1983, ISBN 0-8447-3467-5 .
- GG Mirchandani: 32 Million Judges - Analysis of 1977 Lok Sabha and State Elections in India . Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, 1977 (detailed account of the events around and after the 1977 election, English), ISBN 81-7017-061-3 .
Web links
- Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed September 12, 2014 .
- What I'm accused of is ridiculous - SPIEGEL interview with Indira Gandhi about her political future on July 17, 1978
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed on December 22, 2018 (English, election results of all Indian elections to the Lok Sabha and the parliaments of the states since independence).
- ↑ a b c d e f g Clemens Jürgensmeier: The 7th parliamentary elections in India (I): A triumphant victory for Indira Gandhi? International Asia Forum, Vol. 12 (1981), No. 1, pp. 5-33.
- ↑ A gang. Der Spiegel, July 23, 1979, accessed on September 15, 2014 .
- ↑ In the dust. Der Spiegel, August 27, 1979, accessed September 15, 2014 .
- ^ Formation of Indira Congress. indiansaga.com, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ^ A b Rasheed Kidwai: 24 Akbar Road . Hachette, 2011. ISBN 93-5009077-5 . Published in excerpts: Down but not out. The Telegraph (Calcutta), July 10, 2011, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ^ Divide to Rule (Jan 31, 1978). indiatoday.in, January 26, 1998, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ Bhashyam Kasturi, and Sucheta Mahajan, Aditya Mukherjee, Pranab Mukherjee , Rizwan Qaiser, Anand Sharma, Mridula Mukherjee (eds.): Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation . Academic Foundation, 2011. ISBN 81-7188-858-5 . Quoted in excerpts: Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation. inc.in, archived from the original on December 7, 2016 ; accessed on September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ 4th October 1977: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi released from charges of political corruption. mapsofindia.com, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ India: former prime minister Indira Gandhi is freed from jail and holds news conference. itnsource.com, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ Kallie Szczepanski: Indira Gandhi. asianhistory.about.com, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ^ Myron Weiner: India at the polls, 1980. American Enterprise Institute Studies in Political and Social Processes, Munishiram Manoharlal Publishers, Delhi, 1984. pp. 24f.
- ↑ Weiner, p. 34f
- ↑ 1980: Gandhi returned by landslide vote. BBC on this day: 7 January, accessed September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ Sons of the Plaice. Der Spiegel, June 2, 1980, accessed September 16, 2014 .
- ↑ Varshney Ashutosh: Ethnic and Religious Conflicts in India. culturalsurvival.org, accessed September 15, 2014 .
- ^ Rise and Fall of Indira Gandhi - General Elections 1980. primepoint.in, accessed on September 25, 2014 (English).
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