(a) i. This period was fraught with grave economic crisis resulting in successive failure of monsoons, widespread drought, and decline in agricultural production, serious food shortage, depletion of foreign exchange reserves with sharp rise in military expenditure and diversion of resources from planning and economic development.
(ii) The economic situation triggered off price rise. People started protesting against the increase in the prices of essential commodities, food scarcity, growing unemployment and the overall economic condition on the country. Bandhs and hartals were frequently called across the country.
(iii) Opposition parties were in the forefront of organizing public protests and pressurizing the government. Parties opposed to the Congress realized that the division of their votes kept Congress in power. Thus parties with different ideologies and programmes got together to form anti Congress fronts. This was called non congressism.
(b) i. Many political observers described the election results as a ‘political earthquake’ because the Congress did manage to get a majority in the Lok Sabha but with its lowest tally of seats and share of votes since 1952.
ii. At the state level, the congress lost elections in seven states. In two other states it could not form the government due to defection.
