Will air strikes help Narendra Modi? This is how wars have impacted govts

NEW DELHI: As India faces Lok Sabha elections from April 11 to May 19 in seven phases, the Pulwama terror attack and the following air strike by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Pakistan’s Balakot is being touted to help boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chances to retain power.

This may be true to only some extent if history is to be believed.

Before the February air strikes on Pakistan followed by the April-May Lok Sabha elections, India had faced similar situations on three occasions - the 1967 Lok Sabha elections after the 1962 India-China war and 1965 India-Pakistan battle, the 1977 Lok Sabha elections after the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the 1999 Lok Sabha elections after the Kargil war.

However, only the 1999 Lok Sabha elections after the Kargil war come closest to this year’s general elections which are being held under the shadow of the February 26 air strikes in Balakot.

The reason is the gap between the wars and the next Lok Sabha election. The performance of the ruling party before and after the war gives an insight into the impact the military engagement had on the following Lok Sabha elections.


1962 India-China war & 1965 India-Pakistan war

Let us take the 1962 India-China and 1965 India-Pakistan wars first. The 1962 Lok Sabha elections had taken place in February.

The Congress, led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was already in power. Out of 543, the Congress fielded candidates on 488 constituencies. It registered about 74 per cent victory with 361 of its candidates winning elections. The party garnered 44.72 per cent of the votes polled.

The India-China war took place in October and November the same year. This was followed by the India-Pakistan war in 1965.

The next Lok Sabha election was held two years later in 1967. The Congress’s performance deteriorated as compared with that in 1962.

The ruling Congress fielded candidates on 516 seats. At 54.84 per cent strike rate, 283 candidates registered victory. The party’s vote share also came down to 40.78 per cent.

1971 India-Pakistan Bangladesh war

The war took place in December 1971 when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister while the Lok Sabha elections had already been held in March.

The next election after the 1971 war took place in 1977. During the interregnum, Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency and her government got defamed.

The 1977 Lok Sabha election saw the crushing defeat of the Congress and coming to power of the Janata Party led by Morarji Desai. The Bangladesh war, which had taken six years ago, failed to have any impact on the elections.

1999 Kargil war

Next came the Kargil conflict. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led 24-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had formed government with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the prime minister in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections.

However, the AIADMK led by J Jayalalithaa withdrew support to the Vajpayee government on April 14. In the confidence vote that took place on April 17, Vajpayee lost by just one vote.

Subsequently, then President KR Narayanan dissolved the Lok Sabha on 26 April and called for early elections with Vajpayee as the caretaker PM.

The Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha election schedule on May 4.

However, barely a week after the announcement of the poll schedule, India learnt about Pakistani infiltrators having taken position in Kargil. Operation Vijay to flush out the infiltrators from the peaks of Kargil was undertaken for more than two months.

Finally, on July 26, 1999, India declared victory and the day is celebrated as Kargil Vijay.

The Lok Sabha elections were held in two phases - on September 5 and October 3 - while the counting of votes took place on October 6.

All this while, Vajpayee remained as the caretaker PM. The Kargil war, which had taken about two months before the Lok Sabha elections, seems to have an impact on the results.

The Vajpayee government was voted out of power in April, albeit by one vote. Then Congress president Sonia Gandhi also could not muster the magic number of 272.

In the 1998 Lok Sabha election, the BJP contested on 388 seats and won 182. The Congress contested 477 seats and won 141.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP again got 182 seats though it had contested on lesser number of seats.

On the other hand, the Congress’s performance registered a worse performance than in 1998. Out of the 453 seats it contested, it won 114 won, 68 less than the BJP. This gap was less in 1998 - just 41 seats.

However, with the help of its allies and their better performance, the BJP formed the government again in 1999, with Vajpayee as the PM.

Either the Kargil victory did not help the Vajpayee government or it helped marginally but crucially. Had there been no Kargil war, the Vajpayee government might have failed to form government.

Almost like the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, which were held about 40 days after the Kargil Victory Day, this year’s elections are being held after 43 days of the air strikes.

The air strikes, also called ‘Surgical Strikes 2.0’, may either not help the Narendra Modi government. Or, if it does, it may just be marginal as had happened with Vajpayee after the Kargil war in 1999.