INC In India

In fact, there were three principal reasons for the dominance of INC in the first three general elections: first, good-will of popular brand name such as Mahatma Gandhi, J.L. Nehru, Sardar Patel etc. The INC inherited the organizational structure which was developed during the freedom struggle, and this organization helped the INC during the post-independence elections. Second, the INC had strong grip on people’s pulse. It had a sharp eye to observe and develop formulate for each fancy, gimmick or wave of passion that gathers momentum time-to-time in the minds of the masses. The role of the voters in terms of choice for governance tilted to INC. The Indian voters rejected extremes and voted for a centrist party like Congress. Third, lack of

Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by securing the support of more than two-third majority of the votes. Around this time both the political situation and economic conditions of the country got further deteriorated. From the beginning, Indira Gandhi determined to gain control over the party and over the government at a time when there had been politico-economic turmoil. There was a declining rate of agricultural production, serious food shortage, depletion of foreign exchange reserves, drop in industrial production and exports. There was a huge rise in military expenditure and and continuous devaluation of Indian currency compared to U.S.

There had been nation-wide protests and demonstrations against the increase in prices of the essential commodities, food scarcity, growing unemployment. Without paying heed to the problems, the Indira Government took the issue as law and order problems. Such reactions of the Government further reinforced public bitterness and increased popular unrests. The Communist and the Socialist Parties launched movements for equality and justice. In some regions, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) organized armed struggles. The period also witnessed some of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots. 1.5.4 Amidst polarization of political forces, the fourth general Elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies ware held in 1967. The Congress ultimately could manage majority in Lok Sabha despite reduction of seats and share of votes in Lok Sabha. In many of the State Legislative Assemblies, Congress could not form governments. The coalition of political parties at the state level formed the governments. However, most of the non-Congress coalition governments in the states did not survive for long. President’s rule was imposed in some