NEW DELHI, 7 February 2004 — Indian President Abdul Kalam dissolved Parliament yesterday, paving the way for elections in the world’s largest democracy six months ahead of schedule, a statement said.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee immediately went on the campaign trail with an attack on the opposition, telling a rally in New Delhi that India was safer and more prosperous since his Hindu nationalists took power in 1998.
India’s autonomous Election Commission is expected to meet in the coming days to determine a date for the massive election in which 650 million people are eligible to vote.
Leaders of Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have indicated they want the vote held in April or May, before the onset of the monsoon.
Kalam “has signed an order today dissolving the 13th Lok Sabha (Parliament) with immediate effect,” a statement from the presidential palace said.
It said the president made the decision “as necessary financial and other business have been completed by Parliament,” referring to an interim budget presented Tuesday that authorizes funding until new elections are held.
Vajpayee met with Kalam late Thursday to recommend dissolution of Parliament. BJP leaders are keen to cash in on a “feel good factor” stemming from economic growth of up to eight percent and peace moves with rival Pakistan.
Vajpayee, who turned 79 in December, said last year he was on a final mission to resolve tension with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over disputed Kashmir.
At the rally Vajpayee blamed the main opposition Congress, which ruled India for decades, for the uprising against Indian rule in Kashmir which has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1989. “We did not give birth to terrorism in Kashmir. It was the Congress. We are trying to resolve it and in the past five years we have brought a change in Jammu and Kashmir,” Vajpayee told the crowd.
“Congress turned arrogant and thought it was indispensable. This terrible pride had to be crushed,” said Vajpayee, India’s first non-Congress premier to serve for more than five years.
“Today there is peace in India. Our borders are safe. India has a new stature in the international community and our stores are brimming with food. It is a picture of a confident India, a shining India,” he said.
The BJP also wants to capitalize on disarray in the Congress, which is not held office since 1996. The opposition party is led by Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated former Premier Rajiv Gandhi.
The Congress was trounced in three state elections in India’s Hindi-speaking heartland in December and a number of opinion polls have predicted the BJP is set to return to power in the upcoming national election.
India’s 13th Lok Sabha, composed of 545 members directly elected to five-year terms, passed 305 bills despite lengthy adjournments and frequent walkouts. Among those passed was a controversial anti-terror law introduced after a December 2001 attack by militants on India’s Parliament which brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war.
Also passed was a bill declaring education a fundamental right with the state responsible for providing free, compulsory schooling to children aged between six and 14 years.
