1.
Indian general election, 1991
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General elections were held in India in 1991 to elect the members of the 10th Lok Sabha. The result of the election was no party could get a majority, so a minority government was formed, resulting in a stable government for the next 5 years. The 1991 Indian general election were held because the previous Lok Sabha had been dissolved just 16 months after government formation, the Mandir issue led to numerous riots in many parts of the country and the electorate was polarised on caste and religious lines. With the National Front was falling apart, the Congress managed to make the most of the polarisation, by getting the most seats and forming a minority government. A day after the first round of polling took place on 20 May, the remaining election days were postponed until mid-June and voting finally took place on 12 and 15 June. Voting was the lowest ever in parliamentary elections with just 53 per cent of the electorate exercising their right to vote, the congress party did poorly in the pre-assassination constituencies and swept the post-assassination constituencies. The end result was a minority Congress-led government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao, Congress was in a position to form government. The persons, mentioned in media, as probable Prime Minister, were, Former Home, Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sharad Pawar. Former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Arjun Singh, Former Finance, and Foreign minister N. D. Tiwari. Congress eventually formed the government with P. V. Narasimha Rao to become Prime Minister and he was the second Congress Prime Minister from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family. He introduced Economic reforms in India, election Commission of India Indian general election,1989
2.
Lok Sabha
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The Lok Sabha is the Lower house of Indias bicameral Parliament, with the Upper house being the Rajya Sabha. The house meets in the Lok Sabha Chambers of the Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi, under the current laws, the strength of Lok Sabha is 545, including the two seats reserved for members of the Anglo-Indian community. The total elective membership is distributed among the states in proportion to their population, a total of 131 seats are reserved for representatives of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The quorum for the House is 10% of the total membership, term of the House The Lok Sabha, unless sooner dissolved, continues to operate for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting and the expiration of the period of five years. An exercise to redraw Lok Sabha constituencies boundaries has been carried out by the Delimitation Commission based on the Indian census of 2001, the 16th Lok Sabha was elected in May 2014 and is the latest to date. The Lok Sabha has its own channel, Lok Sabha TV. A major portion of the Indian subcontinent was under British rule from 1858 to 1947, the Indian Councils Act 1861 provided for a Legislative Council consisting of the members of the Executive Council and non-official members. The Indian Councils Act 1892 established legislatures in each of the provinces of British India, although these Acts increased the representation of Indians in the government, their power still remained limited, and the electorate very small. The Indian Councils Act 1909 and the Government of India Act 1919 further expanded the participation of Indians in the administration, the Constituent Assembly was divided into two for the separate nations, with each new Assembly having sovereign powers transferred to it for the respective dominion. The Constitution of India was adopted on 26 November 1949 and came into effect on 26 January 1950, proclaiming India to be a sovereign, democratic republic. This contained the principles of the law of the land which would govern India in its new form. The Lok Sabha was duly constituted for the first time on 17 April 1952 after the first General Elections held from 25 October 1951 to 21 February 1952 and he / She should not be less than 25 years of age. He / She possesses such other qualifications as may be prescribed in that behalf by or under any law made by Parliament, a seat in the Lok Sabha will become vacant in the following circumstances, When the holder of the seat, by writing to the speaker, resigns. When the holder of the seat is absent from 60 consecutive days of proceedings of the House, when the holder of the seat is subject to any disqualifications mentioned in the Constitution or any law enacted by Parliament. A seat may also be vacated when the holder stands disqualified under the Anti-Defection Law, a member both of Parliament and of a House of the Legislature of a State. System of elections in Lok Sabha Members of the Lok Sabha are directly elected by the people of India, for the purpose of holding direct elections to Lok Sabha, each state is divided into territorial constituencies. This provision does not apply for states having a population of less than 6 million, note, The expression population here refers to the population ascertained at the preceding census of which relevant figure have been published. Lok Sabha has certain powers that make it more powerful than the Rajya Sabha, motions of no confidence against the government can be introduced and passed in the Lok Sabha
3.
Parliament of India
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The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. The Parliament is composed of the President of India and the houses and it is bicameral with two houses, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha. The President in his role as head of legislature has powers to summon. The president can exercise these powers only upon the advice of the Prime Minister and those elected or nominated to either house of Parliament are referred to as members of parliament. The Parliament meets at Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi, the Sansad Bhavan is located in New Delhi. It was designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, who were responsible for planning, the construction of buildings took six years and the opening ceremony was performed on 18 January 1927 by the then Governor-General of India, Irwin. The construction costs for the building were ₹8.3 million, the parliament is 560 feet in diameter and covers an area of 6 acres. The Central hall consists of the chambers of Lok sabha, Rajya Sabha, surrounding these three chambers is the four storied circular structure providing accommodations for members and houses Parliamentary committees, offices and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. A new Parliament building may replace the existing complex, the new building is being considered on account of the stability concerns regarding the current complex. A committee to suggest alternatives to the current building has been set up by the Ex, the present building, an 85-year-old structure suffers from inadequacy of space to house members and their staff and is thought to suffer from structural issues. The building also needs to be protected because of its heritage tag, the Indian Parliament consists of two houses called the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha with the President of India acting as their head. The President of India, the Head of state is a component of Parliament, the President of India is elected by the members of Parliament of India and the state legislatures and serves for a term of five years. Lok Sabha or the house has 545 members. It has a term of five years, Rajya Sabha or the upper house is a permanent body not subject to dissolution. One third of the members every second year, and are replaced by newly elected members. Each member is elected for a term of six years and its members are indirectly elected by members of legislative bodies of the states. The Rajya Sabha can have a maximum of 250 members and it currently has a sanctioned strength of 245 members, of which 233 are elected from States and Union Territories and 12 are nominated by the President. The number of members from a state depends on its population, the minimum age for a person to become a member of Rajya Sabha is 30 years
4.
P. V. Narasimha Rao
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Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of India, from 1991–1996. His ascendancy to the prime ministership was politically significant in that he was the first holder of office from a non-Hindi-speaking region. He led an important administration, overseeing a major economic transformation, Rao, who held the Industries portfolio, was personally responsible for the dismantling of the Licence Raj, as this came under the purview of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He is often referred to as the Father of Indian Economic Reforms, future prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh continued the economic reform policies pioneered by Raos government. Rao accelerated the dismantling of the License Raj, reversing the socialist policies of Rajiv Gandhis government and he employed Dr. Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister to embark on historic economic transition. Rao was also referred to as Chanakya for his ability to tough economic. According to Natwar Singh, Unlike Nehru, his knowledge of Sanskrit was profound, Nehru had a temper, PV a temperament. His roots were deep in the spiritual and religious soil of India and he did not need to Discover India. 11th President of India APJ Abdul Kalam described Rao as a statesman who believed that the nation is bigger than the political system. Kalam acknowledged that Rao in fact asked him to get ready for nuclear tests in 1996, the tests were later conducted by Vajpayee-led NDA government. In fact Rao briefed Vajpayee on nuclear plans, Raos term as Prime Minister was an eventful one in Indias history. Rao died in 2004 of an attack in New Delhi. He was a personality with interests in a variety of subjects such as literature. PV Narasimha Rao had humble social origins and his father, P. Sitarama Rao, and mother, Rukminiamma, hailed from agrarian families. He later went on to Hislop College, now under Nagpur University, Raos mother tongue was Telugu, and he had an excellent command of Marathi. In addition to eight other Indian languages, he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish, along with his distant cousin Pamulaparthi Sadasiva Rao, Ch. Raja Narendra and Devulapalli Damodar Rao, PV edited a Telugu weekly magazine called Kakatiya Patrika in the 1940s. Both PV and Sadasiva Rao contributed articles under the pen-name Jaya-Vijaya, Narasimha Rao had three sons and five daughters. Rangarao was a minister in Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddys cabinet and MLA from Hanamakonda Assembly Constituency
5.
Indian general election, 1996
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General elections were held in India in 1996 to elect the members of the 11th Lok Sabha contested by the Congress Party and Bharatiya Janata Party. The result of the election was a parliament with neither top two leading securing a mandate. The Bharatiya Janata Party formed a short lived government, United Front, consisting of non Congress, non BJP was created and secured support from 332 members out of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha, resulting in H. D. Deve Gowda from the Janata Dal being the 11th Prime Minister of India, the 11th Lok Sabha produced three Prime Ministers in two years and forced the country back to the polls in 1998. The Indian National Congress government of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao came into the election on the back of several government scandals, seven cabinet members had resigned during the previous term, and Rao himself faced charges of corruption. In particular, the high profile May 1995 defection of Arjun Singh, the government was further weakened by a series of major scandals breaking less than 12 months from the election. In July 1995 it was found a former Congress youth leader had murdered his wife, government credibility fell further still when in late 1995 when violence significantly worsened in the Kashmir region, and sporadic fighting and ethnic tensions boiled over in Punjab province. As a result of the scandals, the Rao government went into the 1996 election at a low of ebb of public support, yet it did join with several strong regional partners - Shiv Sena, Haryana Vikas Party, and the Samata Party. The so-called Third Force during the 1996 elections was the National Front, after its collapse in 1990, the coalition had chopped and changed before reuniting in the run up to the 1996 election. Three main parties grouped together in September 1995 in hopes of presenting a viable political choice - the Left Front, Janata Dal. A split in the Uttar Pradesh government in December 1995 divided the front further, finally, lacking a strong leader or common set of principles, the main three parties joined with the Samajwadi Party in a common goal of simply denying power to either the Congress or BJP. Thus a characteristic of the 1996 elections was a number of strong regional. In January only a few months before the election, a scandal erupted. Jain, an industrialist in the steel and power sectors, was revealed to have given US$33 million in bribes to politicians from all major parties in return for favours. Further shocking the public, Jain had also channelled money to Kashmiri Muslim militants, almost 115 names would eventually be released, and numerous candidates and ministers were forced to resign in the aftermath. Most significantly was the resignation of L. K. Advani, with Atal Bihari Vajpayee taking over as leader of the BJP, the BJP ran a campaign centred around a four-point plan which aimed for probity of public life, self-reliance in the economy, social harmony and greater security. It strongly advocated a plan which would significantly scale back government intervention and encourage capital investment
6.
Shivraj Patil
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Shivraj Vishwanath Patil is an Indian politician who has been Governor of the state of Punjab and Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh since 2010. Previously, he was the Speaker of the 11th Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996 and he also served in the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi cabinets as Minister of Defence during the 1980s. Patil was born in 1935 in the village of Chakur in the Latur district of the princely state of Hyderabad, now Maharashtra. He attended Osmania University, Hyderabad, earning a degree in Science, during 1967–69, he was involved in local government. Keshavrao Sonawane and Manikrao Sonawane helped Shivaraj Patil to get his first break to stand from Latur Constituency, Patil belongs to the Lingayat community. He married Vijaya Patil in June 1963, in 1980, he was elected to the 7th Lok Sabha from Latur constituency. By 1999, he had won seven successive Lok Sabha elections in 1980,1984,1989,1991,1996,1998 and 1999, in 2004 Lok Sabha election, he lost to Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Rupatai Patil Nilangekar. During 1983–86, he was Vice-President of CSIR India and he also served on various committees including those on Defence, External Affairs, Finance, Salaries and Allowances of members of parliament. In the Rajiv Gandhi government, he was Minister for Personnel, Defence production and later held independent charge of Civil Aviation and he has also held a number of important positions in the party ever since Sonia Gandhi took over the presidency of the party. He is largely known for introducing the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award, India in 1992 and he was the chairman of the manifesto committee of the party during the 1999 Lok Sabha election. Between 1991–1995, he was a member/leader of Indian parliamentary delegations to various international parliamentary conferences and he became Home Minister in 2004. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 2004, united States Ambassador David Mulford in an embassy cable described his removal after the Mumbai terrorist attack as inevitable and called him inept and asleep on the watch. Patils name was considered a candidate in 2007 presidential election. However, after the Left opposed his candidacy, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan, shivraj Patil was later considered a possible candidate for the post of Vice-President of India. His extensive parliamentary experience and his reputation for fairness were said to be the advantages on his side. Shivraj Patil is referred as nero of India and he was reported to have been changing clothes for public appearances while the country was under a terror attack. His actions are compared to Nero who played his fiddle while the city burned as Patil focused on changing his clothes while the country was witnessing a terror attack and he is also criticized to have omitted this episode from his autobiography
