Word: janata
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...more. Defeated in an adjoining constituency by 76,000 votes was Sanjay, in his first try for elective office. Of 542 seats in the new Lok Sabha (Lower House), Mrs. Gandhi's Congress Party won only 153 (v. 355 in the last Parliament), while Desai's Janata coalition won 270, completely routing Congress in its traditional heartland, the Hindi-speaking north. In a dramatic capitulation to the voters' verdict, Indira Gandhi drove to the home of Acting President B.D. Jatti at 4 a.m. one day last week after learning of her defeat, and asked him to lift...
Throughout India news of Mrs. Gandhi's defeat was received with astonishment and euphoria. "What is happening?" shouted Janata supporters outside a counting station in New Delhi. When told that their candidates were winning decisively, the spectators hugged the messengers of the good news. Said Om Prakash, 26, a cloth merchant: "The election result shows that dictatorship cannot acquire any roots in this country." Declared M.C. Sachdeva, 27 a government clerk. "To my generation, freedom began today, not in 1947." The Janata victory, added a fire brigade employe "has come mythical Lord Rama descending to earth to destroy...
...even the Janata leaders predicted a landslide by their party, but many realized in the closing days of the campaign that Congress was in trouble. Opposition rallies were jammed, while Prime Minister's audiences were embarrassingly apathetic. Three times during a rally at Varanasi, the chairman called for a cheer for Indira, and three times the crowd shouted no. In Lucknow, women in the front of the audience started to leave ten minutes after Mrs. Gandhi began to speak. Tired of news broadcasts on the government-run All India Radio, which ignored the opposition's campaign and burbled...
While many of Mrs. Gandhi's Cow Belt gatherings have been thin and lethargic, rallies for the Janata (People's) Party-the first unified opposition to confront the Congress Party in a national election-have been packed with attentive crowds. The speakers generally echo the line of Jayaprakash Narayan, 74, the respected conscience of the opposition, who notes that this may be India's "last chance to vote for democracy." Opposition campaigners are careful to attack Mrs. Gandhi with ridicule and sarcasm rather than abuse. When supporters of Jagjivan Ram at one rally shouted "Death to Indira...
...been surprisingly free, with a minimum of violence. But concern grew among opposition leaders when officials in Delhi ordered some 200,000 central reserve police and members of the paramilitary border-security force to the countryside-a week before the elections-officially to maintain law and order. As Janata leaders quickly noted, their mere presence may inhibit efforts to get out the opposition vote...