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Indira Gandhi was
re-elected by a landslide |
1980: Gandhi returned by landslide
vote |
Artificially 1969:
The The people of
India have voted Indira Gandhi back into power - less than three years
after rejecting her "emergency dictatorship".
When the last of the 196 million votes in national elections were
counted, her Congress (Indira) party had won 351 of the 525 contested
seats in the lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha.
Mrs Gandhi's triumph virtually wiped out her party's two major
contenders. Neither the Janata nor the Lok Dal party gained the requisite
54 seats to qualify for recognition as the official opposition.
Underscoring the extent of her victory, was the election of her son
Sanjay, who had been blamed for many of the excesses of the emergency
rule. He is out of prison on appeal against his conviction for stealing
then destroying the master copy of a film satirizing his mother's rule.
Mrs Gandhi, who had ruled India for 11 years until 1977, successfully
appealed to India's rural masses with her two election slogans, "Banish
Poverty" and "Law and Order".
During the 63-day campaign, the 62-year-old gave up to 20 speeches a
day during a 40,000 mile tour of 384 constituencies.
But Mrs Gandhi's political comeback will be viewed with suspicion.
During the 19 months of emergency rule, introduced after she was accused
of electoral malpractice, democracy was suspended, many opposition
politicians were imprisoned and a compulsory birth control programme was
introduced.
When Mrs Gandhi sought to have the regime legitimised through the
polls, she was defeated by Morarji Desai's Janata party.
The last time she appeared in parliament was in 1978 when she was
expelled on charges involving harassment of government officials during
the emergency. She is still under investigation on charges of abuse of
power, although the assumption is these will now be shelved.
Her electoral victory is partly due to the break-up last summer of the
fragile coalition which formed the Janata party, leaving caretaker prime
minister Charan Singh in control.
As news of Mrs Gandhi's victory spread, strings of coloured festive
lights were strung up around her New Delhi home.
Thousands of people have converged on the bungalow, which was built for
officials of the Raj.