From dispatches
NEW DELHI, India — Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi called parliamentary elections for Nov. 22 and 24 following charges of corruption against his government and the defeat of two constitutional amendments.
The announcement came as a surprise and was calculated to blunt the opposition attack on govt. corruption which had reached a cresendo nationwide. It has also caught the opposition off guard with hardly any time for electionering.
The elections are seen as a test of the world’s only democratically elected dynasty. Gandhi’s family has governed independent India for all but five years of its 42 year history.
Voting will be conducted Nov. 22 and Nov. 24 in all but one of India’s 25 states, said Chief Election Commissioner R.V.S. Peri Sas tri. New elections had been due by mid-January.
Because of the vastness of this country of 880 million people, elections normally are conducted over several days.
At stake are 542 seats in the Lok Sabha, or house of the people, the law making lower house of Parliament.
Gandhi’s Congress Party won 415 seats in the last elections.
Gandhi’s decision to call elections early came on the heels of new charges of high level corruption and his failure to push the two amendments through Parliament last week.
Only Assam will not be going to the polls in which 498 million will vote. Only this year the voting age was brought down to 18 years adding 49 million to the electorate.
Observers in the US feel that Gandhi is going to be “mauled badly” for his poor human rights record in Punjab, Assam and Kasbmir. The price rise over the last two years has been unprecedented and corruption charges against the govt. and even the prime minister himself have left the people convinced they want a change.
The emergence of Ch Devi Lal as a strongman of the Jats after Ch Charan Singh will be to the detriment of the Congress I. Sources say Ch Devi Lal is probably the most dynamic leader to emerge in the last two decades.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 20, 1989
