Politics in India since Independence government. Parties opposed to the Congress realised that the division of their votes kept the Congress in power. Thus parties that were entirely different and disparate in their programmes and ideology got together to form anti-Congress fronts in some states and entered into electoral adjustments of sharing seats in others. They felt that the inexperience of Indira Gandhi and the internal factionalism within the Congress provided them an opportunity to topple the Congress.
The socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia gave this strategy the name of ‘non-Congressism’. He also produced a theoretical argument in its defence: Congress rule was undemocratic and opposed to the interests of ordinary poor people; therefore, the coming together of the non-Congress parties was necessary for reclaiming democracy for the people. Electoral verdict It was in this context of heightened popular discontent and the polarisation of political forces that the fourth general elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies were held in February . The Congress was facing the electorate for the first time without Nehru.
The results jolted the Congress at both the national and state levels. Many contemporary political observers described the election results as a ‘political earthquake’.The Congress did manage to get a majority in the Lok Sabha, but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since . Half the ministers in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet were defeated. The political stalwarts who lost in their constituencies included Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu, S.K.
Patil in Maharashtra, Atulya Ghosh in West Bengal and K. B. Sahay in Bihar. ...in India, as present trends continue… maintenance of an ordered structure of society is going to slip out of reach of an ordered structure of civil government and the army will be only alternative source of authority and order.
…the great experiment of developing India within a democratic framework has failed. Neville Maxwell ‘India’s Disintegrating Democracy’ an article published in the London Times, .