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did not change much under Indira Gandhi, except in 1977 when a
majority of Muslims are estimated to have voted against the Congress
because they were aggrieved on account of the slum clearance and
family planning campaigns Sanjay Gandhi had conducted during the
emergency (June 1975 to March 1977). As for Rajiv Gandhi, in 1989
Muslims voted against the Congress largely in protest against what
they regard as its pro- Hindu bias on the temple-mosque dispute in
Ayodhya (UP) and riots in various towns in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Examined carefully in the context of
the average Congress vote of around 44 per cent before 1989, one
weakness of the Congress support base is obvious. It shows that
while among the weaker sections of society, every two out of three
who exercised their franchise voted for the Congress, only one out
of three did so among caste Hindus who must,by any reckoning, be
regarded as India's mainstream. They constitute the majority, they
are far better educated, and they dominate in every sphere of
activity except the crafts.
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