It first came to power in 1989, after cases of corruption, known as the Bofors scandal, caused Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) to lose the elections. The National Front coalition that was formed consisted of the Janata Dal and a few smaller parties in the government, and had outside support from the Left Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party. V. P. Singh was the prime minister. In November 1990, this coalition collapsed, and a new government headed by Chandra Shekhar under Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) which had the support of the congress came to power for a short while. Two days before the vote, Chandra Shekhar, an ambitious Janata Dal rival who had been kept out of the National Front government, joined with Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister under V. P. Singh, to form the Samajwadi Janata Party, with a total of just sixty Lok Sabha members. The day after the collapse of the National Front government, Chandra Shekhar informed the president that by gaining the backing of the Congress (I) and its electoral allies he enjoyed the support of 280 members of the Lok Sabha, and he demanded the right to constitute a new government. Even though his rump party accounted for only one-ninth of the members of the Lok Sabha, Chandra Shekhar succeeded in forming a new minority Government and becoming Prime Minister (with Devi Lal as deputy prime minister). However, Chandra Shekhar's government fell less than four months later, after the Congress (I) withdrew its support.[10]
Its second spell of power began in 1996, when the Janata Dal-led United Front coalition came to power, with outside support from the congress under Sitaram Kesri, choosing H. D. Deve Gowda as their prime minister. The Congress withdrew their support in less than a year, after the H. D. Deve Gowda Government restarted probing the corruption cases against a lot of Congress leaders, hoping to gain power with the support of various United Front constituent groups, and I. K. Gujral became the next prime minister. His government too fell in a few months, and in February 1998, the Janata Dal-led coalition lost power to the Bharatiya Janata Party in General Elections.[citation needed]
List of prime ministers & chief ministers of India
Punjab Janata Morcha (PJM), in English the Punjab Popular Front, was a Sikhpolitical party in the Indian state of Punjab. The party formed in 1989 as a splinter group of the Janata Dal. The party failed to win any election seats in its lifetime. Party president Kirpal Singh announced that the PJM was disbanded in 1997. Most members joined the Jan Morcha by 2003.[19]
^"Why the Far Right Rules Modi's India". Jacobin. Retrieved 4 June 2024. In this vacuum, the BJP's path to power followed that of three other centrist parties, similar to Congress, which led coalitions on three separate occasions.