The 1977 election and after

In January 1977, after eighteen months, the government suddenly announced elections and released political prisoners.

The major opposition parties, the Congress (O), Jana Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal and Socialist Party, merged to form a new party, the Janata Party, under JP's guidance. Jagjivan Ram, a senior Congress leader, left the Congress and formed the Congress for Democracy, which joined them.

The opposition turned the election into a referendum on the Emergency: their slogan was 'Save democracy'. People had experienced censorship, arrests, and forced sterilisation drives and slum demolitions, especially in the north.

The results:

• The Congress fell to just 154 seats, its worst ever.
• The Janata Party won 295 of the 542 seats (more with its allies).
• The Congress lost every seat in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Indira Gandhi lost her own seat at Rae Bareli.
• But the south stayed with the Congress, where the Emergency had been felt less harshly.

The election also showed a social change: many middle castes of north India moved away from the Congress.

Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress Prime Minister, after a contest with Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram. But the Janata Party had no shared programme beyond opposing the Emergency. It was torn by quarrels and split in under 28 months. Charan Singh's government that followed lasted about four months.

In 1980, the voters turned again: the Congress returned with 353 seats. They had punished the Emergency in 1977, and they punished the Janata Party's instability in 1980.