Question

“The elections of 1989 marked the end of the congress system and rise of the coalition era." Support the statement with any three arguments.

Answer 1

1. In the 1989 elections, the party had won only 197 seats, which was very low in comparison to the 1984 elections, where the party won 415 seats. Congress boosted up its performance, and finally it came back to power in 1991, after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. But the elections of 1989 marked the end of what political scientists have called the ‘Congress system’. Congress remained a major party, but it lost its dominance as it enjoyed earlier in the party system.
2. With the elections of 1989, a long phase of coalition politics began in India. Since then, there have been eleven governments at the Centre, all of which have either been coalition governments or minority governments supported by other parties that did not join the government.
3. In this new phase, any government could be formed only with the participation or support of many regional parties.
4. This applied to the National Front in 1989, the United Front in 1996 and 1997, the NDA in 1997, the BJP-led coalition in 1998, the NDA in 1999, and the UPA in 2004 and 2009. However, this trend changed in 2014.
5. Following 1989, no single party received the most votes or seats in any Lok Sabha election conducted between 1989 and 2014.
6. This brought in an era of coalition governments at the centre, with regional parties playing a critical role in building major coalitions.