General election in India 1985 (Assam and Punjab)

The election for Lok Sabha in the states of Assam and Punjab 1985 took place on September 25, 1985 in Punjab , and on December 16, 1985 in Assam . Both states did not take part in the Indian parliamentary elections in December 1984 . At the same time, the parliaments of Punjab and Assam were also newly elected.

background

→ Main article : Parliamentary election in India in 1984

Due to the unrest and the precarious security situation in Punjab after the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar on March 3rd - 8th. The state of Punjab did not take part in the Indian parliamentary elections in December 1984 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31 , 1984 by Indian army units ( Operation Blue Star ) . In the northeastern state of Assam , too, no election took place due to the unrest there. The background to the unrest in Assam were ethnic conflicts between the native Assamese and mountain peoples on the one hand and Muslim Bengali immigrants to Assam on the other. The conflict had been simmering for a long time and broke out openly in 1979. As a result, Assam had largely not participated in the parliamentary elections in India in 1980 . The Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi , newly elected by a large majority in 1984 , tried to defuse the two hot spots of conflict, Assam and Punjab. In negotiations he achieved a partial calming of the situation, so that elections could also be held in these two states.

Punjab

After lengthy negotiations with moderate Shiromani Akali Dal -Sikh politicians led by Harchand Singh Longowal was the June 24, 1985 at Punjab Agreement ( Punjab accord signed) between Gandhi and Longowal.

The agreement aimed to end the state of civil war in Punjab and met the demands of the Sikhs. Central points of the agreement were the compensation of people who had been harmed in the Punjab unrest since 1982, the prosecution of perpetrators in the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in November 1984 and the rehabilitation of Sikhs who had left the army and released from the security forces. Martial law in Punjab should be repealed. The union territory of Chandigarh was to be annexed to the Punjab and the neighboring state of Haryana was to receive predominantly Hindi-speaking border areas of the Punjab in return. Other points of the agreement concerned the use of water resources and the promotion of the Punjabi language. The agreement was controversial on both sides. Haryana felt cheated. Radical Sikhs, on the other hand, did not want to give up their goal of complete independence of Khalistan and saw Longowal as traitors. Apparently the first success of the agreement, the number of people killed by terrorist acts in Punjab fell markedly (from 359 in 1984 to 63 in 1985). On August 17, 1985, Gandhi announced the holding of elections for Lok Sabha and the regional parliament in Punjab. On August 20, 1985, Longowal, one of the two protagonists of the Punjab Agreement, was murdered by a radical Sikh assassin. Despite this setback, Gandhi essentially kept the originally envisaged election timetable for the Punjab, but the election date was postponed 3 days. Candidates could be nominated up to September 2, 1985 and the decision on the admission of candidates was made on September 3.

Assam

In 1978 the official Indian side first addressed the problem that many foreigners had been entered in the Indian electoral register. The states in northeast India were particularly hard hit. The subject was taken up by the All Assam Students Union (AASU, " All Assamese Students Union"), which demanded the expulsion of all illegal immigrants from Assam at their annual congress in Sibsagar from March 7-10 , 1979. This was the start of the so-called " Assam movement " ( Assam movement ) which lasted 1979-1985. The leaders of the Assam movement, which was largely supported by the AASU and members of the Assamese middle class, agitated against the alleged foreign infiltration of Assam by illegal immigrants, most of whom were Muslim Bengali from nearby Bangladesh . The deletion of all immigrants from the electoral registers of Assam, as well as for the most part their expulsion from Assam, was demanded. Due to the agitation in the parliamentary elections in 1980 only 2 of the 14 constituencies of Assam could be elected and the election to the parliament of Assam in 1983 was largely boycotted at the instigation of the agitators.

On August 15, 1985, was Assam Agreement ( Assam accord ) between Rajiv Gandhi, supported by the Congress-led government of Assam and the representatives of the signed Assam Movement. The agreement provided for the deletion of all persons who had immigrated to Assam since January 1, 1966, from the electoral registers in Assam. Immigrants who had come to Assam by March 24, 1971 were to be given the opportunity to re-register, but they were not to be allowed to vote until 10 years later at the earliest. Immigrants who came to Assam after March 25, 1971 were to be expelled. After the conclusion of the agreement, the parliament of Assam was dissolved on August 18, 1985 and new elections for the parliament of Assam as well as for the 14 Assamese Lok Sabha constituencies were announced for December 18, 1985. At the AASU congress in Golaghat from October 12-14, 1985, a new political party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), was founded as the political arm of the Assam movement. Candidate nominations for the election could be made until November 22, 1985 and decisions about admission were made on November 23, 1985.

Election process and voter turnout

The turnout was comparatively high in both states. With 67.36% it was in Punjab above the voter turnout of previous Indian elections or elections to the parliament of the Punjab, which was otherwise at 60-65%. In Assam, the turnout was 77.4%, while in the last all- India election in 1977 , in which all of Assam took part, it was just under 55%. Shiromani Akali Dal put up own candidates in 11 of the 13 Punjab constituencies. The two communist parties put up 6 constituency candidates in Punjab and 4 in Assam, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had three candidates in Punjab and 2 in Assam and the Janata Party had two in Punjab and 10 in Assam. The Congress party ran in all constituencies of Punjab and in 13 of the 14 of Assam. The candidates from Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) were counted as “independents” by the Indian Election Commission together with various individual candidates. There were a total of 106 candidates in the 14 constituencies of Assam (between 5 and 10 per constituency) and 74 candidates ran in the 13 constituencies of Punjab (between 4 and 10 per constituency).

More than 150,000 additional security guards were deployed in Punjab to ensure that the election ran smoothly.

Voter and turnout in Assam and Punjab

State	Eligible voters	Voters	electoral participation	Invalid votes	Number of polling stations
Assam	10.097.661	7,815,702	77.40%	4.45%	13,829
Punjab	10,737,064	7,232,374	67.36%	4.14%	12,717
total	20,834,725	15,048,076	72.23%	4.30%	26,546

Election result

Punjab

Constituency results in Punjab: Indian National Congress Shiromani Akali Dal



The election winner was the Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). It won 2,577,279 votes (36.91%) and 7 of the 13 constituencies (53.8%) of the Punjab. The SAD also won the election for the Punjab Parliament, which was held in parallel (73 out of 115 constituencies). Congress party candidates were successful in the remaining 6 Lok Sabha constituencies. In the previous election in 1980, SAD had 1,396,412 votes (although the overall turnout was lower) and only won one of the 13 constituencies.

Overall result in Punjab

Political party	Abbreviation	be right	percent	Seats
Indian National Congress	INC	2,879,089	41.53%	6th
Shiromani Akali Dal	SAD	2,577,279	37.17%	7th
Communist Party of India	CPI	266.364	3.84%	0
Bharatiya Janata Party	BJP	235.368	3.39%	0
Communist Party of India (Marxist)	CPM	206,322	2.98%	0
Janata party	JNP	155.206	2.24%	0
The rest	-	613,326	8.85%	0
Total valid votes		6,932,890	100.0%	13

Assam

Assam constituency results: Asom Gana Parishad Indian National Congress Indian Congress (Socialist) Others





Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won 7 of Assam's 14 Lok Sabha constituencies. The party came into being so shortly before the elections that its candidates were counted as “independents” by the Indian Electoral Commission. AGP also won the election to the Parliament of Assam with 67 of the 126 constituencies. The Congress Party won 4 of the 14 Lok Sabha constituencies and one constituency was elected by the Indian Congress (Socialist) IC (S), a split from the Congress party, the Plains Tribals Council of Assam (constituency 5-Kokrajhar) and an independent candidate (4th -Dhubri) won.

Overall result in Assam

Political party	Abbreviation	be right	percent	Seats
Asom Gana Parishad and Independents	AGP	4,251,696	56.93%	8 (7 AGP, 1 Independent)
Indian National Congress	INC	1,749,688	23.43%	4th
Indian Congress (Socialist)	IC (S)	457.705	6.13%	1
Plains Tribal Council of Assam	PTCA	310.150	4.15%	1
Janata party	JNP	264,876	3.55%	0
Communist Party of India (Marxist)	CPM	256.254	3.43%	0
Communist Party of India	CPI	103,323	1.38%	0
Lok Dal	LKD	46,627	0.62%	0
Bharatiya Janata Party	BJP	27,916	0.37%	0
Total valid votes		7,468,235	100.0%	14th

1. ↑ ^{a b c} The AGP candidates were counted as independents by the Indian Electoral Commission. The part of the votes of the AGP cannot therefore be determined with certainty. The seven successful AGP candidates together received 2,002,854 votes (26.8%). The percentage of votes held by AGP candidates in the remaining 7 constituencies is unknown.

consequences

The elections in Punjab and Assam could initially be viewed as a success of Rajiv Gandhi's policies. The elections passed without major irregularities and the turnout was comparatively high, so that the elected parliamentarians could feel legitimized. Despite winning two regional opposition parties in both states, the Congress Party had a comfortable two-thirds majority of the seats in the Lok Sabha.

With the Punjab and Assam Accords, there was a chance that years of violence in both states, which had killed thousands, could come to an end. In the period that followed, however, it became apparent that Rajiv Gandhi completely gambled away the progress made, especially in Punjab, due to his inconsistent and hesitant attitude in implementing the agreements. In Assam, too, there was no permanent calming of the situation, partly because the newly elected AGP government could not implement the Assam Agreement and partly because new conflicts ( Bodoland ) arose, so that the state in the year 1989 again did not participate in the all- India election .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Joginder Kumar Chopra: Politics of Election Reforms in India. Mittal Publications, Delhi 1989, ISBN 81-7099-103-X , p. 272.
2. ^ JC Aggarwal, SP Agrawal: Modern History of Punjab. Chapter 12: Rajiv Gandhi-Longowal accord, 1985. In: SP Agrawal (Ed.): Concepts in Communication Informatics & Librarianship-37. Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi 1992, ISBN 81-7022-431-4 .
3. ↑ Aggarwal & Agrawal (1992) Appendix p. 228, quoted from The Times of India. February 9, 1992.
4. ↑ Sanjoy Hazarika: India schedules Punjab elections for Sept. 22. The New York Times, August 18, 1985, accessed February 27, 2015 . 
5. ^ Rone Tempest: Gandhi Defends Decision on Punjab Vote: By Not Postponing Election, He Seeks to Isolate Sikh Extremists. The Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1985, accessed February 27, 2015 . 
6. ↑ Chandhra Nath Boruah: Assamese Response to Regionalism - a Study Based on Electoral Politics. Mittal Publications, New Delhi 2009, ISBN 978-81-8324-281-3 .
7. ↑ ^{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). 
8. ^ Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab. Retrieved February 27, 2015 .