Challenges to and Restoration of the Congress System The outcome and after The results of the Lok Sabha elections of , were as dramatic as was the decision to hold these elections. The Congress(R)-CPI alliance won more seats and votes than the Congress had ever won in the first four general elections. The combine won seats in Lok Sabha and secured . per cent votes.
Indira Gandhi’s Congress(R) won seats with about per cent of the popular votes on its own. Contrast this with the performance of the Congress(O): the party with so many stalwarts could get less than one-fourth of the votes secured by Indira Gandhi’s party and win merely seats. With this the Congress party led by Indira Gandhi established its claim to being the ‘real’ Congress and restored to it the dominant position in Indian politics. The Grand Alliance of the opposition proved a grand failure.
Their combined tally of seats was less than . “The Grand Finish” is how a cartoonist interpreted the outcome of the elections. Players on the ground are the then leading opposition figures. Credit: R.
K. Laxman in The Times of India