2004 Indian general election


General elections were held in India in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha, or "House of the People," is the directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India.
On 13 May, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its alliance National Democratic Alliance conceded defeat. The Indian National Congress, which had governed India for all but five years from independence until 1996, returned to power after a record eight years out of office. It was able to put together a comfortable majority of more than 335 members out of 543 with the help of its allies. The 335 members included both the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, the governing coalition formed after the election, as well as external support from the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Kerala Congress and the Left Front..
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, asked the former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, a respected economist, to head the new government. Singh had previously served in the Congress government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, where he was seen as one of the architects of India's first economic liberalisation plan, which staved off an impending national monetary crisis. Despite the fact that Singh had never won a Lok Sabha seat, his considerable goodwill and Sonia Gandhi's nomination won him the support of the UPA allies and the Left Front.
Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governments along with the parliamentary elections

Organisation

The election dates for the parliamentary elections were:
Counting began simultaneously on 13 May. Over 370 million of the 675 million eligible citizens voted, with election violence claiming 48 lives, less than half the number killed during the 1999 election. The Indian elections were held in phases in order to maintain law and order. A few states considered sensitive areas required deployment of the armed forces. The average enrolment of voters in each constituency is 1.2 million, although the largest constituency has 3.1 million.
The Election Commission of India is responsible for deciding the dates and conducting elections according to constitutional provisions. The Election Commission employed more than a million electronic voting machines for these elections.
According to the magazine India Today, 115.62 billion rupees were expected to have been spent in campaigning for the elections by all political parties combined. Most of the money was spent on the people involved in the election. The Election Commission limited poll expenses to Rs. 2.5 million per constituency. Thus, the actual spending is expected to have been approximately 10 times the limit. About 6.5 billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on mobilising 150,000 vehicles. About a billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on helicopters and aircraft.

Political background

had recommended premature dissolution of the 13th Lok Sabha to pave the way for early elections apparently in view of the recent good showing of the BJP in the Assembly elections in four states. The two "major parties" in India are the BJP and the Congress.
The Chief Election Commissioner who conducted the 2004 general elections in India was T.S.Krishnamurthy

Pre-poll alliances

In these elections, compared to all the Lok Sabha elections of the 1990s, the battle was more of a head-to-head contest in the sense that there was no viable third front alternative. Largely the contest was between BJP and its allies on one hand and Congress and its allies on the other. The situation did, however, show large regional differences.
The BJP fought the elections as part of the National Democratic Alliance, although some of its seat-sharing agreements were made with strong regional parties outside of the NDA such as Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
Ahead of the elections there were attempts to form a Congress-led national level joint opposition front. In the end, an agreement could not be reached, but on regional level alliances between Congress and regional parties were made in several states. This was the first time that Congress contested with that type of alliances in a parliamentary election.
The left parties, most notably the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India, contested on their own in their strongholds West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, confronting both Congress and NDA forces. In several other states, such as Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, they took part in seat sharings with Congress. In Tamil Nadu they were part of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam -led Democratic Progressive Alliance.
Two parties refused to go along with either Congress or BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party. Both are based in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state of India. Congress made several attempts to form alliances with them, but in vain. Many believed that they would become the 'spoilers' that would rob Congress of an electoral victory. The result was a four-cornered contest in UP, which didn't really hurt or benefit Congress or BJP significantly.

Forecast and campaigns

Most analysts believed the NDA would win the elections. This assessment was also supported by opinion polls. The economy had shown steady growth in the last few months and the disinvestment of government owned production units had been on track. The Foreign Exchange Reserves of India stood at more than US$100 billion. The service sector had also generated a lot of jobs. The party was supposed to have been riding on a wave of the so-called "feel good factor", typified by its promotional campaign "India Shining".
In the past, BJP has largely been seen as a hard-line Hindu party with close ties with the Hindu organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Over the years, the party has slightly distanced itself from its Hindutva policies, a change that is being questioned after the party's poor showing in the elections. These elections were marked by the campaign's emphasis on economic gains. From the last few elections, BJP had realised that its voter base had reached a ceiling and had concentrated on pre-poll rather than post-poll alliances. The foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi also constituted part of the NDA's campaign.

Results

Support for formation of UPA-led Government

Results by states and territories

States

Territories

Results by Parties

Party NameStates contestedSeats contestedSeats wonNo. of Votes% of Votes% in Seats contestedForfeited in seats
Indian National Congress33400145103,408,94926.53%34.43%82
Bharatiya Janata Party3136413886,371,56122.16%34.39%57
Communist Party of India 19694322,070,6145.66%42.31%15
Bahujan Samaj Party254351920,765,2295.33%6.66%358
Samajwadi Party232373616,824,0724.32%10.26%169
Telugu Desam Party133511,844,8113.04%42.75%0
Rashtriya Janata Dal642249,384,1472.41%31.27%14
Janata Dal 167389,144,9632.35%17.73%44
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam13308,547,0142.19%35.59%0
Nationalist Trinamool Congress53328,071,8672.07%29.97%7
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam116167,064,3931.81%58.24%0
Shiv Sena1456127,056,2551.81%17.90%34
Nationalist Congress Party113297,023,1751.80%33.98%10
Janata Dal 124335,732,2961.47%15.67%24
Communist Party of India1534105,484,1111.41%23.70%19
Biju Janata Dal112115,082,8491.30%51.15%0
Shiromani Akali Dal11083,506,6810.90%43.42%0
Lok Jan Shakti Party124042,771,4270.71%10.02%32
Rashtriya Lok Dal113232,463,6070.63%11.08%23
Telangana Rashtra Samithi1852,441,4050.63%13.19%0
Pattali Makkal Katchi2662,169,0200.56%51.66%0
Asom Gana Parishad11222,069,6000.53%23.53%4
Indian National Lok Dal42001,936,7030.50%12.60%14
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha4951,846,8430.47%28.43%3
Revolutionary Socialist Party3631,689,7940.43%33.50%2
Marumaralarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam1441,679,8700.43%58.23%0
All India Forward Bloc51031,365,0550.35%18.81%7
Total35543543389779784100%-4218

Results by alliances

Votes and seats of the major parties are compared with those won in the 1999 election
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Elected MPs

See separate article, List of Members of the 14th Lok Sabha

Results by post-alliance/allies

There are a maximum of 545 members of Parliament: 543 elected, and two may be nominated by the President to represent the Anglo-Indian community. Repolling was ordered in four constituencies due to irregularities. The results in the remaining constituencies were as follows :
Though pre-poll predictions were for an overwhelming majority for the BJP, the exit polls predicted a hung parliament. However, even the exit polls could only indicate the general trend and nowhere close to the final figures. There is also the general perception that as soon as the BJP started realising that events might not proceed entirely in its favour, it changed the focus of its campaign from India Shining to issues of stability. The Congress, who was regarded as "old-fashioned" by the ruling BJP, was largely backed by poor, rural, lower-caste and minority voters that did not participate in the economic boom of previous years that created a large wealthy middle class and thus achieved its overwhelming victory. Another reason which was not mentioned much but still spoken of in the public was that BJP supporters are working-class people, and the poll surveys predicted BJP win, and therefore they did not reach the ballot. Whereas the Congress support base, the weaker sections of the society, don't miss voting at all.
Another more prominent reason came from checking the RSS contribution, RSS cadres reached Vajpayee over the killing of 4 RSS workers in Tripura, and Vajpayee disappointed them. RSS backed off, and results were evident.
Other possible reasons that have been given for the NDA defeat are:
The rout of the ruling parties in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the general elections led to calls for the dissolution of the governments of these states.
The stock market fell in the week prior to the announcement of the results due to fears of an unstable coalition. As soon as counting began, however, it became clear that the Congress coalition was headed for a sizeable lead over the NDA and the market surged, only to crash the following day when the left parties, whose support would be required for government formation, announced that it was their intention to do away with the disinvestment ministry. Following this, Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister and the prime architect of the economic liberalisation of the early 1990s, hurried to reassure investors that the new government would strive to create a business-friendly climate.

Events