United Front (India, 1996)

Background

The Indian general election in 1996 returned a fractured verdict. With the Bharatiya Janata Party emerging as the largest party with 161 of 543 seats, it was invited first to form a government. It accepted the offer, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as the prime minister. However, he was unable to get a majority in parliament, and the government dissolved 13 days later. At a meeting of all the other parties, the Indian National Congress, with a substantial 140 seats, declined to head the government and agreed to extend outside support to the coalition, whereas the Communist Party of India (Marxist) agreed to join the coalition with the Janata Dal at its head, named the United Front.

With the approval of the Congress and CPI(M), the sitting chief minister of Karnataka, H. D. Deve Gowda, was asked to head the coalition as Prime Minister after V. P. Singh and Jyoti Basu declined. His term was from 1 June 1996 to 21 April 1997. The Congress revoked its support for Gowda amidst discontent over communication between the coalition and the Congress. It compromised to support a new government under I. K. Gujral, who served as the prime minister from 21 April 1997 to 19 March 1998. Following the collapse of his government, fresh elections were called, and the United Front lost power. Later, when N. Chandrababu Naidu stepped down as convener of the United Front to extend outside support to the National Democratic Alliance, the coalition disbanded.

Electoral performance

List of prime ministers

Coalition members

References

References

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6. (2021-12-03). "Mamata Banerjee Can Say No UPA Anymore but Her National Goals are Tied to Congress' Future".
7. Kumar, Arvind. (2022-08-19). "What Left parties' decision to not join Bihar alliance means for India's Dalits, women, MBCs".
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9. Mukul, Akshaya. "Historic blunder: How hardliners denied Basu the chance to be PM". The Economic Times.
10. (2021-06-01). "25 years ago HD Deve Gowda took oath as PM; JDS highlights achievements".
11. (15 December 1997). "Elections '98: United Front confident of good performance in coming polls".
12. (11 April 2022). "Third Front {{!}} Alternative political combination and its challenges".
13. (2018-11-10). "Chandrababu Naidu 2.0: Can he recreate 1996 in 2019 in the Capital?".