If political history could be divided into epochs, Indira Gandhi’s began in 1969, when she split the Congress, and ended in 1989, when Rajiv Gandhi lost power. Two rising, political forces made this happen: Mandir and Mandal. The Congress never quite recovered its elan, despite 15 years of power subsequently (one term under P V Narasimha Rao and two under Sonia Gandhi/Manmohan Singh). The real power was shared in different phases by children of Mandir and Mandal, much in the fashion of rival teams sharing sessions in a cricket Test match. That epoch has now ended.
That post-1989 politics
That post-1989 politics
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