India remains by far the largest democracy in the world, with almost 600 million voters. India's parliamentary government and First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system, see First Past the Post (FPTP), is a legacy of British colonialism, which ended in 1947. The British introduced self-government to India in stages, but it was not until the end of colonial rule and the adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1950 by a Constituent Assembly that universal suffrage were achieved. The Constituent Assembly, which comprised a number of eminent jurists, lawyers, constitutional experts and political thinkers and laboured for almost three years, debated the issue of which electoral system should be adopted at great length before finally choosing a FPTP electoral system. Various systems of proportional representation were considered and attracted many advocates, given India's extremely diverse and multi-ethnic society, but FPTP was chosen mainly to avoid fragmented legislatures and to help the formation of stable governments - stability being a major consideration in a developing country with widespread poverty and illiteracy.
The Indian Constitution provides that all adult citizens who are 18 years or more of age, and who are not otherwise debarred from voting, can exercise their right to the franchise. Voters elect a 544-member Lok Sabha, or lower house, from single-member constituencies, and each of India's 25 states have adopted a similar system. By contrast, the upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha or Council of States, as well as the corresponding upper houses of the states, are indirectly elected by members of the state legislative assemblies. There is also a (non-executive) President and Vice-President elected by the members of parliament and state legislative assemblies.
General elections are held once every five years, but the President may dissolve the Lok Sabha on the advice of the Prime Minister before its term is over, as in 1971 and in 1997, or if he or she is convinced that no stable government can be formed, as in 1991. The Prime Minister holds office for as long as he or she can command a majority in the Lok Sabha. All the successive governments of the Congress party, which ruled India continuously until 1977, served a full term in office. Since 1977, governments have been less stable, and a number of Prime Ministers have had to resign as a result of party splits or no-confidence votes before completing their full term.
While the electoral process is widely regarded as free and fair, and the Electoral Commission is highly independent and has wide powers, serious problems remain. This is especially the case in certain pockets of rural northern India where landed elites do not allow the rural poor to vote; polling stations are regularly captured by hired gangs; voters are influenced by offers of free transport, and candidate spending limits are widely flouted. Sectarian appeals at election time can, and have, fuelled violence: Hindus make up 85 percent of the population, but India also has over 120 million Muslims, and the fragmenting of the party system has been characterized by a rise in popularity for extremist parties.
The major effect of the electoral system, at least until 1977, was to guarantee majority governments based on a minority of voter support. The FPTP electoral system resulted in the ruling Congress party securing stable majorities in the Lok Sabha, usually against a fragmented opposition. But since 1977, when the opposition parties combined to form coalitions and started putting up common candidates against the Congress candidates (as was the case in the 1977 and 1989 general elections), the Congress majorities have vanished. Moreover, the nature of the system meant that small changes in vote share often had a dramatic impact upon the shape of the resulting parliament. For example, the Congress party's share of parliamentary seats fell dramatically with only a slight decrease in votes, as can be seen in the table below.
The overall results of elections to the Lok Sabha have never been proportional. Because the candidate who obtains the most votes, but not necessarily a majority of votes polled, is declared elected, support can often be divided by setting candidates of the same caste, religion, or region against each other. But despite the divided nature of India's multi-ethnic democracy, the electoral system has retained a considerable degree of support, due in part to the practice of reserving seats for socially underprivileged groups, see Minority Provisions. The Indian Constitution reserves 22 percent of all seats for historically disadvantaged groups known as Scheduled Castes (79 reserved seats) and Scheduled Tribes (41 reserved seats). In these constituencies, only a member of the Scheduled Castes or Tribes may contest the polls, although all electors have voting rights. This has ensured that their parliamentary representation is in line with their proportion of the population. A constitutional amendment, which seeks to reserve 33 percent of seats for women representatives, is currently being considered.
The depth of popular support for the integrity of the electoral system became evident in 1977. When the election of the incumbent Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was set aside by a court after Congress had won a two-thirds legislative majority in 1971, she responded by setting aside fundamental constitutional rights for two years (1975 - 1977), an authoritarian interlude in India's otherwise continuous history of competitive democracy. In the 1977 elections, her government lost power through a fair poll, signaling the unwillingness of India's voters to accept undemocratic practices. But the elections of 1977 also ushered in a new era of instability in Indian politics. Since 1977, the Congress Party has been able to complete terms in office only under Indira Gandhi (1980 - 1984), Rajiv Gandhi (1984 - 1989) and PV Narasimha Rao (1991 - 1996).
The strength of the electoral system has not been mirrored by the emergence of a viable non-Congress alternative at the national level. The non-Congress opposition parties, except the Communists, won government in 1977 by uniting into a composite entity, the Janata party. It split within two years. In December 1989, a successor party, the Janata Dal, came to power, supported by the Communist parties and the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); this government lasted ten months. At the Indian General Elections of 1996, no party was able to form a stable government. The BJP won 161 seats and the Congress won 140.
Two unprecedented things happened as a result of these elections. First, the main opposition party, the BJP, a right wing, pro-Hindu political party, was asked by the President of India to form a government for the first time. But most of the other political parties, with the avowed objective of preventing BJP from coming to power, combined together so that the BJP could not muster even a bare majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha, and subsequently a coalition of 13 parties, with diametrically opposing ideologies, under the banner of United Front, formed the Government. In other words, neither the largest nor the second-largest party could form a government. The FPTP general elections of 1996, under the very same electoral system that had brought stability until 1977, thus ushered in an era of political instability and uncertainty.
| Congress Party Performance in Indian General Elections |
| Year of General Elections |
Percentage of total votes polled by the Congress |
Percentage decrease in votes polled |
Number of seats obtained |
Percentage decrease in seats |
| 1971 (won) |
43.7 |
- |
352 |
- |
| 1977 (lost) |
34.52 |
35.39% |
154 |
56.25% |
| 1980 (won) |
42.7 |
- |
353 |
- |
| 1984 (won) |
48.10 |
- |
405 |
- |
| 1989 (lost) |
39.53 |
19.49% |
197 |
51.36% |
| 1991 (won) |
36.50 |
- |
232 |
- |
| 1996 (lost) |
28.80 |
21.10% |
140 |
39.66% |
