Three General Elections in Four Years
12th June 1996
This day, 28 years ago, from my personal diary entry.
#memoriesfromdiaries ❤️
This particular day, almost three decades ago, assumes national significance for an important reason.
The 1996 general elections [held in just three days – 27th April, 2nd May and 7th May 1996] threw up a hung parliament, with no party having enough seats to form a government on their own.
This particular year, (1996) the BJP had made history by emerging as the largest party in Lok Sabha in the 1996 General Elections. The President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma had hence invited Vajpayee to form the government.
Soon thereafter, Shri Vajpayee was sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of India. However, since the BJP could not get the support of a majority of MPs of the Lok Sabha, Vajpayee resigned after 16 days in office. (16th May to 1st June 1996).
Suddenly there sprang up a bolt-from-the-blue surprise from ‘the United Front’, a cluster of 13 regional parties, who then staked their claim to form the government at the Centre with the support of the Indian National Congress. It was again a surprise when Deve Gowda was chosen as the Prime Ministerial candidate.
Soon, Shri Deve Gowda was sworn in as Prime Minister of India on 1st June 1996. And soon thereafter, he proved his majority on the Floor of the House on this particular day, 12th June 1996. Sadly, however, his government lasted less than a year, as the Indian National Congress withdrew its support to the ‘United Front’ coalition in 1997. Gowda resigned as Prime Minister soon after.
So in March 1998, I.K. Gujral, [who was the Minister of External Affairs in the Deve Gowda ministry], was sworn in as Prime Minister on 21st April 1997. Sadly again, Gujral had to resign within a year, as he couldn’t prove a majority in Parliament.
Hence, to the shock of the entire nation, the Lok Sabha was dissolved, and fresh general elections were held in 1998, three years ahead of its schedule!
Yet again, in the year 1998, there was a hung parliament, and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee took over as Prime Minister of India, once again, to form a coalition government led by the National Democratic Alliance (which was just then founded - in May 1998) with the outside support of the Telugu Desam Party.
Vajpayee had the support of 272 of 543 MPs. However, quite unfortunately, his government collapsed on 17 April 1999, since the AIADMK under Ms. Jayalalithaa withdrew its support.
This led to fresh general elections yet again, in 1999.
This time, the BJP-led NDA won a comfortable 303 seats out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, securing a stable majority. Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister on 13th October 1999. He went on to have a full five-year term as Prime Minister.
On the personal front -
On this particular day, today, my best friend Thilak and myself – we both went to a theatre nearby, to watch the movie Rajali, starring Ramki, Roja, Silk Smitha, etc [directed by Velu Prabhakar] along with my close friend Thilak. It was one of Silk Smitha’s last movies, as sadly, she died by suicide in September of the same year (1996).
We also got a puncture in his cycle tyre sealed on this particular day. I also happened to meet my MCC School classmate Surendar who had scored 1,066 marks out of 1,200 in the HSC Examinations. I also got the news from my close friend Sunil that he had scored 850 marks.
You may want to read more on Shri Vajpayee, on our past blogpost titled, That One Crucial Vote, HERE on our blog.
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