50 Fun Facts About Indian Politics

Which Prime Minister declared the 1975 Emergency after the Allahabad High Court voided her election?

Indira Gandhi's Emergency ran for 21 months, from June 1975 to March 1977, with opposition leaders jailed and the press censored. A judge had found her guilty of misusing government machinery in her 1971 campaign.

Which two banknotes did India void overnight on 8 November 2016, cancelling about 86% of the cash in circulation?

The ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were declared invalid from midnight in a televised address, with new ₹500 and ₹2,000 notes issued in their place. Queues formed outside banks for weeks as people swapped the old paper.

Which party, formed from the 2011 anti-corruption protests, won 67 of Delhi's 70 seats in 2015 under a broom symbol?

The Aam Aadmi Party, 'Common Man Party', was launched by Arvind Kejriwal on 26 November 2012 after he and Anna Hazare parted ways over entering politics; the Election Commission approved its broom for the 2013 Delhi poll.

Which ballot option, ordered by the Supreme Court in 2013, lets Indian voters formally reject every candidate on offer?

NOTA, short for 'none of the above', has been the last button on every Indian ballot since the court ruled that a formal rejection would increase participation. A NOTA plurality changes nothing: the leading candidate still wins.

Which device, first tried in a 1982 by-election in Kerala, was used in all 543 Lok Sabha constituencies by 2004?

India's electronic voting machine made its debut at Paravur in Kerala in May 1982, and the 2004 general election was the first fought entirely on the machines. Paper ballots had been the rule since the first poll of 1951–52.

Which Prime Minister governed for ten years from the upper house after losing his only Lok Sabha contest in 1999?

Manmohan Singh represented Assam in Parliament's upper house from 1991 and, as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014, was only the fourth head of government drawn from that chamber. He had been the finance minister behind the 1991 reforms.

Which provision, the source of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, was rendered inoperative on 5 August 2019?

Article 370 had limited which parts of the Indian Constitution applied in Jammu and Kashmir; the 2019 order applied all of it, and Parliament then split the state into two union territories, born on 31 October 2019.

Which indirect tax, launched at a midnight session of Parliament on 1 July 2017, replaced VAT, excise and octroi?

The Goods and Services Tax needed the 101st constitutional amendment and got only the fourth midnight sitting in Parliament's history, after independence in 1947 and its silver and golden jubilees. It replaced VAT, excise and octroi.

Which city, planned by Le Corbusier, is a union territory that serves as the capital of both Punjab and Haryana?

Chandigarh was built because Partition left Punjab's old capital, Lahore, in Pakistan, and it became a shared capital when Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966. Its Capitol Complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which Himalayan monarchy voted by 97.55% in a 1975 referendum to abolish its king and become a state of India?

Sikkim's Chogyal had ruled a protectorate of India; after the April 1975 vote a constitutional amendment made the kingdom India's 22nd state within weeks and abolished the Chogyal's office. Turnout was put at about 63 per cent.

Who became India's first non-Congress Prime Minister in 1977, taking the job at 81, the oldest ever to do so?

Morarji Desai led the coalition that beat Congress after the Emergency, and his government restored normal relations with China for the first time since the 1962 war. He was also the first ex-deputy prime minister to take the top job.

Which former governor of Rajasthan took office in 2007 as India's first woman President?

Pratibha Patil had also been the first woman to govern Rajasthan, and she won nearly two-thirds of the electoral college vote to become India's 12th President on 25 July 2007. She had sat in the Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996.

Which philosopher-president's 5 September birthday has been marked as Teachers' Day in India at his own suggestion?

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India's second President, told students who wanted to celebrate his birthday that it would be his 'proud privilege' if the day honoured teachers instead. He had held the Spalding chair at Oxford before politics.

Which house of Parliament cannot be dissolved, its members serving staggered six-year terms?

The Rajya Sabha, or Council of States, has 233 members chosen by state legislators and 12 nominated by the President, with about a third of the seats falling vacant every two years. It cannot vote on a no-confidence motion.

Which office, filled by a vote of MPs alone, carries the ex officio chairmanship of Parliament's upper house?

The Vice President is chosen by an electoral college of both houses of Parliament, nominated members included, while state legislators get no vote; the holder ranks second in India's order of precedence and is paid for chairing the house.

Which state, formed on 2 June 2014, covers the Telugu-speaking districts of the former princely state of Hyderabad?

Telangana's separation movement, peasant-driven at first, dated from the early 1950s, and Hyderabad was to stay the joint capital of the new state and its parent for a period while the parent chose a new capital.

Which 2005 law lets any citizen demand records from a public authority, which must reply within 30 days?

The Right to Information Act came fully into force on 12 October 2005, four months after receiving the President's assent on 15 June, and cuts the reply window to 48 hours when a petitioner's life or liberty is at stake.

Which 2005 scheme guarantees 100 days of paid manual work a year to any rural household whose adults ask for it?

MGNREGA was hailed by the government as 'the largest and most ambitious social security and public works program in the world', yet in practice the average household gets about 45 days of work rather than the promised 100.

Which anti-corruption ombudsman, demanded by Anna Hazare's 2011 fast in Delhi, was finally created by a 2013 Act?

The Lokpal bill had been introduced and dropped ten times over 45 years before it passed on 18 December 2013; the body can investigate even a sitting Prime Minister. Its state-level counterparts are called Lokayuktas.

Which party, founded by Kanshi Ram in 1984 under an elephant symbol, made Mayawati chief minister of Uttar Pradesh?

The Bahujan Samaj Party was launched on 14 April 1984, Ambedkar's birthday, by Kanshi Ram, who reckoned the 'bahujan' majority was 85 per cent of India yet split into 6,000 castes. He named Mayawati his successor in 2001.

Which party, founded by Mamata Banerjee in 1998, ended 34 years of Left Front rule in West Bengal in 2011?

Trinamool Congress, 'grassroots Congress', was formed when Banerjee quit the parent party after 26 years; its 2011 coalition took 227 of the 294 assembly seats. It had won seven Lok Sabha seats in its first election in 1998.

Which party did the cartoonist Bal Thackeray found in Bombay on 19 June 1966 as a Marathi regionalist movement?

Shiv Sena grew out of Marmik, the satirical cartoon weekly Thackeray had begun publishing in 1960; his nephew Raj later broke away to found the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, while his son Uddhav succeeded him as party chief.

Which Tamil Nadu party, founded by C. N. Annadurai in 1949, has a sun rising between two mountains as its symbol?

DMK's rising sun was inspired by Karunanidhi's 1950s play Udaya Suryan and is meant to signify the 'rising' spirit of the Dravidian people; Annadurai ran the party as general secretary until his death in 1969.

Which BJP-led coalition, formed in May 1998, ran the first non-Congress government to serve a full five-year term?

The National Democratic Alliance held a parliamentary majority from 1998 to 2004 and, after the 1999 election, served out the full term that no non-Congress government had managed before. Its founding chairman was the prime minister.

Which formation, launched on 23 January 1977 by merging the main opposition groups, ended Congress's 30-year rule?

The Janata Party absorbed the Jana Sangh, the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party, its constituents dissolving their separate identities to fight the post-Emergency election; by 1980 the Jana Sangh members had left to form the BJP.

Which 1973 ruling, argued over 68 days before 13 judges, put the Constitution's basic structure beyond Parliament?

The Kesavananda Bharati case began with the head of Edneer Matha, a Kerala monastery, fighting land-reform laws and ended in a 700-page judgment; two days later a dissenting judge was made Chief Justice over senior colleagues.

Which 1976 rewrite, nicknamed the 'Mini-Constitution', added 'socialist' and 'secular' to the Preamble?

The 42nd Amendment also changed 'unity of the nation' to 'unity and integrity of the nation', bound the President to cabinet advice and put itself beyond judicial review, a part the Supreme Court struck down in Minerva Mills in 1980.

Which 1985 addition to the Constitution ended 'Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram' party-hopping by disqualifying defectors?

The Tenth Schedule came in through the 52nd Amendment, passed unanimously by both houses in January 1985; the phrase it targets mocks Gaya Lal, a Haryana legislator who changed parties thrice in a fortnight in 1967.

Which Prime Minister, the first from south India, led the minority government that liberalised the economy in 1991?

P. V. Narasimha Rao had very nearly retired from politics in 1991 when the job fell to him, and the reforms his government began in a balance-of-payments crisis have been kept by every successor. A polyglot, he spoke 17 languages.

Which Prime Minister implemented the Mandal Commission's job quotas for backward castes in 1990, igniting protests?

V. P. Singh had quit as defence minister when the Bofors scandal broke, then beat his old party in 1989; his government fell within a year, but the quota politics he set loose reshaped north India around OBC-based regional parties.

Which Prime Minister's first government lasted only 16 days in May 1996 before he resigned for lack of support?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee returned in 1998 after two United Front governments fell, and from 1999 served the first full five years of any non-Congress government. As foreign minister in 1977 he was the first to address the UN in Hindi.

From which country did India borrow its Directive Principles, the non-binding social goals it sets for the state?

Ireland's Directive Principles of Social Policy appealed to India's framers, who saw the Irish Home Rule struggle as a mirror of their own; India's version covers social justice, welfare and foreign policy, and no court can enforce it.

Which provision, the remedy Ambedkar ranked above all others, lets a citizen go straight to the Supreme Court?

Article 32 makes the right to a remedy a fundamental right in itself; Ambedkar, who drafted it, said that without it the Constitution 'would be a nullity'. Every other fundamental right leans on it for enforcement.

Which state, India's first drawn on linguistic lines, was formed in 1953 after Potti Sriramulu died on a 58-day fast?

Andhra State was conceded by Nehru after Sriramulu's death set off riots across the Telugu districts of Madras; the precedent led straight to the Fazal Ali commission and the 1956 redrawing of every state on linguistic lines.

What share of Lok Sabha and state assembly seats does the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam reserve for women?

One-third of directly elected seats are to go to women under new Articles 330A and 332A, but the quota takes effect only after a census and a redrawing of constituencies; the demand goes back to the Constituent Assembly in 1946.

Who served as acting Prime Minister twice, for 13 days each time, after prime ministers died in office in 1964 and 1966?

Gulzarilal Nanda filled in although the Constitution has no provision for an 'acting' Prime Minister; a labour economist who ran the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association for 24 years, he quit Congress in 1971, disliking the era's politics.

Which community lost its two nominated Lok Sabha seats, filled since 1952, when the 104th Amendment took effect in 2020?

Anglo-Indians were the only community given nominated seats, two members chosen by the President on the government's advice in every Lok Sabha from the first; the same amendment extended Scheduled Caste and Tribe reservations to 2030.

Who won the 1969 presidential election as an independent, beating the official Congress nominee in a runoff?

V. V. Giri, a former trade union leader backed by the Communists and by the prime minister against her own party's candidate, won 420,077 votes to 405,427 after a campaign that pitted her against the Congress 'Syndicate' bosses.

Which President was elected unopposed in 1977 after 36 of the 37 nominations filed were rejected?

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy had lost the 1969 contest as the official Congress candidate; eight years later the electoral college of 4,532 MPs and state legislators never had to vote. The sitting President had died that February.

Which Prime Minister resigned on 20 August 1979 after 23 days, the only one never to face Parliament?

Charan Singh took office with Congress support, which was withdrawn before he could seek a confidence vote; a champion of farmers from Uttar Pradesh, he had drafted that state's land-reform laws in the 1950s as its revenue minister.

Which 2017 ruling saw nine judges declare privacy a fundamental right, overruling eight- and six-judge precedents?

The Puttaswamy case was brought by a retired judge challenging the Aadhaar identity scheme; the bench was enlarged to nine because verdicts of eight and six judges had held there was no such right. It rests on Articles 14, 19 and 21.

Which President, the first Sikh in the office, sat on the 1986 Post Office bill in India's only 'pocket veto'?

Giani Zail Singh could do it because the Constitution sets no deadline for presidential assent; the bill would have let the government read private mail, and it lapsed unsigned. He once said he would sweep floors if she asked.

Which classical-liberal party, founded by C. Rajagopalachari in 1959, was the largest opposition in the 1967 Lok Sabha?

The Swatantra Party was a reaction to what its founder saw as Nehru's increasingly socialist, statist Congress; it won 44 seats and 8.7 per cent of the vote in 1967, then faded after his death in 1972 and dissolved in 1974.

Who became India's first Chief Justice when the Supreme Court opened in January 1950, dying in office the next year?

Harilal Kania had already headed the Federal Court since 1947 and read the oath of office to Rajendra Prasad, India's first President; he sat in the 5–1 majority that upheld preventive detention in the A. K. Gopalan case of 1950.

Who was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha, having presided over the Central Legislative Assembly before independence?

G. V. Mavalankar, known as Dadasaheb, was elected Speaker on 15 May 1952 as the Congress member for Ahmedabad, having already chaired the Constituent Assembly's legislative sittings and the Provisional Parliament from 1949.

Which anonymous political-funding scheme of 2017 did a five-judge Supreme Court bench strike down on 15 February 2024?

Electoral bonds could be bought only at the State Bank of India, in denominations up to one crore rupees, and handed to a party with no public record of the donor; the court made the bank disclose every purchase for publication.

Which 1985 ruling won a divorced Muslim woman from Indore maintenance, only for Parliament to dilute it in 1986?

The Shah Bano case ended with the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, which limited maintenance to the 90-day iddat period; she had been divorced by triple talaq at 62 after her husband stopped paying ₹200 a month.

Which Chief Election Commissioner of 1990 to 1996 gave every eligible voter an ID card and capped candidates' spending?

T. N. Seshan also posted election officials from outside the state going to the polls and banned liquor handouts, unlicensed loudspeakers and campaigning in places of worship; he was the 10th holder of the office.

Which former diplomat, a daughter of Jagjivan Ram, became the first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 2009?

Meira Kumar spent a decade in the Indian Foreign Service before quitting in 1985 to enter politics, winning a by-election in Bijnor that year; she was the 15th Speaker, serving the full 2009–14 term.

Which President, the first Muslim to hold the office, became in 1969 the first to die in office?

Zakir Husain, a founding member of Jamia Millia Islamia, served just under two years, the shortest of any Indian presidency; his tomb lies on the Jamia campus in Delhi.