In 1984 Lok Sabha elections held during the national wave in favour of the Congress following the murder of Indira Gandhi, the ruling party got the maximum number of seats – 414. The BJP was decimated electorally with only two seats. The 40-year-old Rajiv Gandhi started his tenure with widespread goodwill. He belonged to the new generation and talked of building a modern India. He started well with his1985 address at the AICC session calling for the weeding out of corruption from the Congress party as also the government.
His main achievement in this tenure was to bring about a telecom revolution in the country in collaboration with Sam Pitroda. Sam’s program and vision led to the building of the telecom infra in the country, and for the reaching out of tele facilities to the remotest parts of the country. The unprecedented surge in telecom sector in the last three and half decades culminating in the latest 5G technology has its origin in the work which Sam Pitroda did during Rajiv’s tenure.
At the party level, Rajiv had a major dilemma in choosing his advisers. He had a big generation gap with the old guards of the Congress. He depended on his group of young friends, mainly buddies of Doon School like Arun Nehru, Suman Dubey, Arun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyer. The Congress veterans like Arjun Singh, M L Fotedar, felt alienated. In 1987, his Finance Minister V.P. Singh was transferred as Defence Minister, and from that day, Rajiv’s comfortable period ended. The young ‘Mr. Clean’ soon began facing a politically turbulent period during the rest of his tenure.
V P Singh resigned from the Rajiv cabinet and joined hands with the opposition. Bofors-I pay-off became the core issue targeting Rajiv and alleging that he and his friends were corrupt. Arun Nehru also joined V. P. Singh and deserted Rajiv, who really could not rule in the second half of his term. He was constantly firefighting both in Parliament and outside against the opposition attacks. In 1989, Lok Sabha elections, Congress got less than 200 seats out of 543. The entire opposition combined against the Congress to form the government at the centre headed by V P Singh as the Prime Minister.
It was a three-way coalition; V P Singh led the newly-formed National Front combination belonging to several groups and he was supported by the BJP from one side and the Left from the other. It was an extremely difficult task for the V P Singh government to function properly. Senior BJP leader L K Advani who was the main coordinator with V P Singh during that brief tenure pushed a number of measures favouring BJP. V P Singh announced the Mandal Commission recommendations. Widespread agitations by anti-Mandal supporters followed. In addition, the attacks on Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley posed a big problem to the fledgling Prime Minister.
BJP, which was opposed to Mandal Commission recommendations, counter-attacked by announcing Ram Rath Jatra by L K Advani. Soon, the saffron party withdrew its outside support to the V P Singh government. The National Front government fell on November 7, 1990, after a tenure of 343 days. The country again landed in political turmoil. Chandrasekhar came out of the Janata Dal combination with his SJP faction and formed the government with support by the Congress from outside. This government formed in late 1990 also fell after the Congress withdrew its support. Chandrasekhar continued as the caretaker PM as the country was getting ready for another Lok Sabha election in early 1991.
In the course of the process of the 1991 general elections, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21. The polling in the remaining centres in the country was postponed for a few days due to mourning period. The last phase of polling was held normally. It was a hung Lok Sabha again, but the Congress was the single largest party.
On June 21, 1991, the 70-year-old Congress veteran P V Narasimha Rao took oath as the Prime Minister of a minority government amidst massive political uncertainty over its longevity. The Congress had got only 232 seats as against the usual majority of 272 in the Lok Sabha with the total strength of 543. Only one month ago, on May 21, Rajiv Gandhi was killed in the course of the campaign for the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. Sonia Gandhi was in mourning and Rao was also acting as the Congress president.
The next 34 days from June 21 to July 24, the day, P V Narasimha Rao’s first budget was presented by the Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. It had all the elements of a high octane political and economic thriller which can be made use of by an ace director to make a top-class eco-political film. The soft-spoken Brahmin, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh who knew 17 languages, created history by pioneering the economic reforms through his first budget and the new industrial policy presented on the same day, July 24, 1991.
Dr. Manmohan Singh was his able implementer. Those who had the opportunity to observe the developments from close quarters in those days, saw how resolutely, he protected his finance minister from all attacks by his senior Congress colleagues and led the senior bureaucrats to go ahead with the reforms programme despite continuous feedback from the Congress seniors that Rao was deviating from Congress policies. Influential leaders like Arjun Singh, M K Fotedar and Natwar Singh were very angry, and they were looking for gaps in the measures being proposed by Rao. Dr. N K P Salve even met the Prime Minister and told him that Dr. Manmohan Singh was a bad choice, and he must be removed.
Dr. Manmohan Singh was under tremendous pressure since he was an outsider. Rao told him to go ahead as planned and he assured that he would take care of the political side of the budget. Rao as both PM and the Congress President organised a series of meetings to explain to the seniors — including Arjun Singh, N K P Salve and Natwar Singh — the precarious status of the economy and why the steps proposed by him were absolutely needed to salvage the situation. But still, the draft new industrial policy was disapproved at the cabinet meeting on July 19. Rao agreed to make some changes, but peripheral to the main thrust of the policy, and finally succeeded in getting it approved at the meeting on July 23, just one day before its presentation in Parliament.
The big advantage of Rao was that despite all adverse talks in the media about the Chandrasekhar government, both the short-term Prime Minister and the Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha were persons with sharp mind, and they prepared an ad hoc programme for implementation by the new government which would take over. The IMF-World Bank prescriptions were there and Rao’s advisers, after taking over, found many of the proposals made by the erstwhile Chandrasekhar government fit for implementation.
The foreign exchange reserves dipped to its lowest level and the situation was going from bad to worse as the investors were losing confidence. The Rao government opted for rupee devaluation as per the IMF-World Bank prescription and the first phase of 9 percent was announced on July 1. This was followed on July 3 by another 10 per cent devaluation. The political tempers ran high as both the anti-Rao Congress MPs, BJP and the Left voiced strong protests against devaluation. Rao did not care for others, but he had to take into account the views of his party MPs.
But the Prime Minister in his stoic manner dealt with the dissidents resorting to different tactics and by the time the budget was being presented, the tempers in the Congress party came down. They were waiting for the final budget presentation and its impact on the parties and the people. At the trade policy level, the new Commerce Minister P Chidambaram got his job ready, and he presented a thirteen-point policy package which was announced on July 4. The tempo was thus being built up for the final budget presentation on July 24.
On the D-Day, July 24, Prime Minister was quite nervous in the morning. He confided to a senior journalist that he needed God’s blessing since the day was his biggest test in his political career. He must have prayed to God in the morning with his Sanskrit slokas. At the other end, Dr. Manmohan Singh was also equally strained. He was aware that he was performing a historic task and its failure in any way, would impact his fate as also of the future of this Government. He was determined that he would not let the PM down. He was looking nervous when he was entering the Lok Sabha but soon, he got back his composure.
Finance Minister gave a Nehruvian dimension in his first budget speech when he said quoting Victor Hugo: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.” Then he said: “I suggest to this august house that the emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea. Let the whole world hear it loud and clear. India is now wide awake. We shall prevail. We shall overcome.” The speech had the ring of Nehru’s address on the eve of August 15, 1947. That was a call to the world to take note of India that had gained political freedom. Dr. Singh wanted to impart a new dimension to that by conveying that the world has to take note now of India’s great battle for economic freedom that had started.
At my professional level, this writing on the 1991 budget was my biggest challenge in the Hindustan Times, after taking over as the Business Editor. The owner, the veteran K K Birla was the chairman of the company and his daughter Shobhana Bhartia had just joined as Editorial Director and vice-chairperson. The new economic reforms would have impact on their industries which were being run till then as family-run business and were comfortable in a sheltered environment under licence raj. I was not sure how to put this big event in perspective. Thankfully, no instructions came from the top and I organised the budget coverage in an objective manner highlighting the major changes in the policies.
Prime Minister’s finest hour in 1991 after his first budget presentation did not last long. 1992 was the year of big turmoil both on political and economic front. On the economic front, the big share market scam involving Harshad Mehta took place giving a big jolt to the small investors. The UTI funds, the mainstay of the middle class, especially the salaried and senior citizens, busted. Then came on December 6, 1992, the despicable demolition of Babri Masjid. PM was on backfoot politically, but the economic restructuring process continued under Dr. Manmohan Singh with full support of Rao.
In 1996 Lok Sabha elections, it was a hung Lok Sabha again. The BJP was asked to form the Government first. Atal Behari Vajpayee remained Prime Minister for 13 days as he lost the confidence motion in the house. A new United Front government was sworn in under the Prime Minister Deve Gowda, with Congress support from outside. This government fell after a year and a New Front government took over headed by Prime Minister I K Gujral. This also fell due to the same factor of Congress’s withdrawal of support from outside. The Lok Sabha elections were held in 1998 and this time the BJP led by A B Vajpayee as the Prime Minister could form the government with its allies of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
This Vajpayee govt also fell after 13 months as the NDA ally AIADMK led by Jayalalithaa withdrew its outside support. Another Lok Sabha election was held in 1999 and this time BJP and its NDA allies did well, getting a comfortable majority a total of 303 out of 543 seats in Lok Sabha. In 1999, a stable NDA ministry under Vajpayee took over. The Vajpayee era in1998-1999 is marked by India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998 and the victory in Kargil war against Pakistan in May 1999.
India entered the new century under the leadership of the BJP which had virtually no role in the independence of the country. The midnight children of India now were greying on the wrong side of fifties. A completely new generation belonging to the emerging tech revolution started dominating the demography. India was in the midst of a major generational change when it entered the year 2000, the first year of the 21st century and the third millennium. (IPA Service) To be continued…
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