India's 2004 elections: implications for the future.

• Author: Shuja, Sharif
• Position: 130463916
• Pages: 30(6)

Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party defeated the Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.)-dominated National Democratic Alliance (N.D.A.) in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The results announced on 13 May 2004 have been said to be one of the biggest upsets in Indian politics since independence. The Congress won 145 seats to become the largest single party for the first time in almost a decade, followed closely by the B.J.P., which won 138 seats. The Congress-led alliance secured 216 seats. So severe was the B.J.P.'s defeat that as many as 25 of its ministers were voted out.

Prime Minister Vajpayee conceded defeat and provided his resignation to President Abdul Kalam. Amid safety fears, Sonia Gandhi said that she did not want to become Prime Minister. She declared: "The post of Prime Minister has not been my aim. I would follow my inner voice. Today it tells me that I must humbly decline this post." It is worth noting that extremists killed her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and her mother-inlaw, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Manmohan Singh, the former Finance Minister, who launched India's shift away from a state-run economy in 1991, became the new Prime Minister.

SLOGANS

Every society leaves behind symbolic as well as material debris among its old monuments and ruins. Election time is a particularly significant time to examine which slogans and symbols survive and which undergo transformation.

Indian election slogans generally revolve around ideas of unity, stability and innovation. "India shining" and the "feel good factor" were the slogans of the B.J.P. "India shining" had been coined following the recent upswing in the economy, which registered 8.5 per cent annual growth rates in the last quarter of 2003. The B.J.P. argued that India was thriving, its economy was growing, industrialisation was taking place, agriculture was giving good returns and everyone was consequently feeling "good". However, this did not translate into votes.

The main opposition party, Congress, accused the B.J.P. of trying to "cover up its glaring failures". It highlighted the first-time negative employment growth that the country had seen during the N.D.A. years, with unemployment crossing the 10 million mark. Congress also debunked claims of high G.D.P. growth rates, maintaining that during the N.D.A.'s five-year rule, the growth rate was just five per cent, and it was only in the last quarter of 2003 that it reached 8.5 per cent.

More than a quarter of the populace continued to live below the poverty line, unemployment was on the rise, prices of essential commodities were rocketing, social tension had increased and atrocities against women and minorities were increasing. The United Nation's 2003 human development report calculated...