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. Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governments. They were the first elections fully carried out with electronic voting machines.
On 13 May the Bharatiya Janata Party, the lead party of the National Democratic Alliance conceded a shocking mysterious defeat. The Indian National Congress, which had governed India for all but five years from independence until 1996, returned to power after a record six years out of office. It was unable to put a majority alone in 2004. It formed UPA, which had 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 and external support from the Left Front, who threatened to withdraw their support during Nuclear Deal.

Background

Speaker Manohar Joshi, who was from the Shiva Sena, 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. But though this recommendation was not accepted by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee, the Speaker dissolved the Lok Sabha.

Organisation

The election dates for the parliamentary elections were:
  • 20 April – 141 constituencies
  • 26 April – 137 constituencies
  • 5 May – 83 constituencies
  • 10 May – 182 constituencies
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 was 12 lakhs, although the largest constituency had 31 lakhs.
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 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. 25 lakhs per constituency. Thus, the actual spending is expected to have been approximately ten times the limit. About 6.5 billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on mobilising 1,50,000 vehicles. About a billion rupees are estimated to have been spent on helicopters and aircraft.

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 its allies on one hand and Congress its allies on the other. However, the situation did 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 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 CPM and the CPI, 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 DMK-led DPA.
Two parties refused to go along with either Congress or BJP, they were BSP 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 prevent Congress of an electoral victory. The result was a four-cornered contest in UP, which didn't really hurt or benefit BJP or Congress 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 years 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 Vajpayee government had launched numerous welfare schemes, thus starting the culture of "Yojana"s in Indian governments. The party was supposed to have been riding on a wave of the feel good factor, typified by its promotional campaign "India Shining".
In the past, BJP has largely been seen as a hardline Hindu right wing party with close ties with the hardline organisations the RSS and Vishva Hindu Parishad. Over the years, the party under Vajpayee has slightly distanced itself from hardline policies in order to accommodate a variety of parties within the NDA, like TMC, breakaway factions of the Janata Dal like INLD, RLD, JD and BJD, Dravidianist parties like DMK, PMK and AIADMK and parties largely representing non-Hindus like SAD and JKNC, a change that was being questioned after the party's good performance in the 2003 assembly elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Karnataka. These elections were marked by the campaign's emphasis on economic gains instead of issues involving religious polarisation. Ban on cow-slaughter, implementation of a Uniform Civil Code, construction of Ram-mandir at the site of Ayodhya, abolition of the provisions of secularism in order to make Hinduism the country's state religion etc. characterised BJP's campaign in the 1996 election. 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 Vajpayee wave and foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi also constituted part of the NDA's campaign.

Opinion polls

Exit polls

State/UT-wise voter turnout details

Results

Region-wise results

By state and territory

States

State/Union TerritorySeats
State/Union TerritorySeatsUPANDALFOthers
Andaman and Nicobar Islands11000
Andhra Pradesh4235520
Arunachal Pradesh20200
Assam1411302
Bihar40291100
Chandigarh11000
Chhattisgarh1111000
Dadra and Nagar Haveli10001
Daman and Diu11000
Delhi76100
Goa21100
Gujarat26121400
Haryana109100
Himachal Pradesh43100
Jammu and Kashmir53003
Jharkhand1412110
Karnataka2881820
Kerala2021180
Lakshadweep10100
Madhya Pradesh2942500
Maharashtra48232500
Manipur21001
Meghalaya21100
Mizoram10100
Nagaland10100
Odisha2131800
Pondicherry11000
Punjab1321100
Rajasthan2541400
Sikkim10100
Tamil Nadu3939000
Tripura20020
Uttar Pradesh80911061
Uttarakhand51301
West Bengal4261350
Total5432181816084

Territories

Analysis

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. Congress was regarded as old-fashioned by the ruling NDA and many. But Congress declared that it has largely backing of poor, rural, lower-caste and minority voters though all sections of the society had participated in the economic boom of Vajpayee's years. The BJP declared that, PV Narasimha Rao's govt had created a wealthy middle class. But Congress achieved its victory on grounds of coalition politics.