21 Facts About Janata Party

Janata Party's was barred from contesting any election for the next six years.

New Janata Party-led government reversed many Emergency-era decrees and opened official investigations into Emergency-era abuses.

The Janata Party Morcha won the elections for the Vidhan Sabha of the state of Gujarat on 11 June 1975.

Raj Narain, a leader of the Socialist Janata Party, who had unsuccessfully contested election against Indira from the constituency of Rae Bareilly in 1971, lodged a case at the Allahabad High Court, alleging electoral malpractices and the use of government resources for her election campaign.

The Janata party was officially launched on 23 January 1977 when the Janata Morcha, Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal, Swatantra Party, the Socialist Party of India of Raj Narain and George Fernandes, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh joined, dissolving their separate identities (the merger of all party organizations was to be completed after the election).

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Janata Party's campaign evoked memories of India's freedom struggle against British rule, during which Jayaprakash Narayan, Jivatram Kripalani and Morarji Desai had first emerged as political leaders.

In contrast to the rest of the country, the Janata party won only six seats from India's southern states – none from the state of Kerala – where the Emergency had not caused political unrest.

Immediately afterwards, the Janata party faced a serious challenge in choosing a leader to become India's new prime minister, where the rival bids of party leaders could divide the party and weaken its majority before it took power.

Janata Party sought to carefully distribute important posts to satisfy Janata's different constituents and the most powerful party leaders who were rivals for his own position of leadership.

The Congress was defeated in all the states, and the Janata party took power in seven – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

In Punjab, the Janata party formed a coalition government with the Akali Dal.

The government called fresh elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where the Janata party won 13 seats to the Congress' 11, and the veteran Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdullah returned to power after having been dismissed in 1953.

The Janata Party government announced its desire to achieve "genuine" non-alignment in the Cold War, which had been the long-standing national policy.

Socialists and secular Janata Party politicians shared an aversion to the Hindu nationalist agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose members included Vajpayee, Advani and other leaders from the former Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Decline in the popularity of the Janata Party government was aided by the stalled prosecution of Emergency-era abuses.

In 1980 general elections, Janata Party declared Jagjivan Ram as its Prime Ministerial candidate, but the party won only 31 seats out of 542.

At the polls, the candidates running under the Janata ticket were resoundingly defeated – the party lost 172 seats, winning only 31.

Between 1980 and 1989, the Janata party maintained a small presence in the Indian Parliament under the leadership of socialist politician Chandra Sekhar.

The Janata party led a popular movement to restore civil liberties, evoking the memories and principles of the Indian independence movement.

Participants in the struggle against the Indian Emergency and of the Janata party went on to comprise a new generation of Indian political leaders.

Janata Party continued to exist led by Subramanian Swamy, which maintained a small presence in the politics of the state of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Chandigarh, Delhi and at the national stage.