Rajiv Gandhi, The Prime Minister continues....

The General Elections of December 1984 were unique in the history of free India. From north to south and from east to west, people had one feeling in their minds – the nation was in danger, it should be saved. Indira Gandhi’s brutal assassination, though a tragedy of great magnitude, united the country in an unprecedented way and rallied the people behind the

Congress under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi. No election in India ever

had so much emotional content as this one. It seemed that people wanted

to vote for the Congress with a vengeance. Even while sitting in Delhi, one could sense the general mood in the country. Interestingly, the media, as is its wont, came out with different theories and, as usual, missed the mood of the nation. So their predictions were neither here nor there. The author of this book, certainly not any professional sephologist, while giving an assessment of the prospects of the Congress to Prof. P.J. Kurian, a senior member of Parliament belonging to the Congress, predicted that the Congress would get more than 400 seats.

When the final results were out, the Congress secured 406 seats and 48 per cent of the vote share. The vote share was the highest the Congress had ever secured. In all respects the election results were epochal. Great stalwarts of the Indian political scene got blown away by this hurricane. All the major political parties in the Opposition were decimated. Only a regional party, the Telugu Desam under the leadership of Shri N.T. Ramarao, could survive. The people of India were indeed creating history.

To be continued....