1980 Punjab Assembly election

Who: The Congress (I) under Indira Gandhi, back in power at the Centre; the Akali Dal, which Ashutosh Kumar says contested unsuccessfully in alliance with the CPI and the CPM; and the voters of Punjab.

What: In the Lok Sabha election of January 1980 the Akali Dal won one of Punjab's 13 seats, Tarn Taran, and the Congress (I) twelve, by IndiaVotes' figures, and the Akali vote fell to 23.37 per cent. Gurmit Singh, writing at the time, says the Akalis lost in 37 of the 58 Assembly segments they had won in 1977, and blames indecision after the fall of the Desai Government, the open quarrel between the Akali Dal president Jagdev Singh Talwandi and the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, and the Akali handling of the Nirankari issue.

Khushwant Singh writes that after Indira Gandhi's win Badal let her know he would cooperate with the Centre if left undisturbed, and that she refused and dismissed his government, having scores to settle with the Akalis for backing Jayaprakash Narayan and for their resistance to the Emergency. By Wikipedia's list of Chief Ministers, the Akali-Janata ministry of Parkash Singh Badal was dismissed on 17 February 1980 and President's rule ran until 6 June.

The Assembly election followed. The Congress won 63 of the 117 seats with 45.19 per cent of the vote. The Akali Dal won 37 (26.92 per cent), the CPI 9, the CPM 5, the BJP 1 and independents 2. Turnout was about 64 per cent. Grewal notes that the Congress won 63 seats against 51 for the Akalis and their Communist allies, that its main support came from Hindus in urban and semi-urban areas and Harijans in villages and towns, and that the share of Sikhs among its legislators fell from about 65 per cent in 1967 to about 45 per cent. He adds that Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale supported some Congress candidates. Wikipedia's page for the election gives the voting date as 6 June 1980, the day its list of Chief Ministers gives for Darbara Singh taking office, so the polling day is left open here.

Where: All 117 constituencies of Punjab.

Why it mattered: Darbara Singh, sworn in as Chief Minister on 6 June 1980, led a Congress government for three years, until President's rule on 6 October 1983. The Assembly election came three years after the June 1977 election that had put the Akali-Janata alliance in office. Khushwant Singh writes that between August 1980 and September 1981 the Akalis organised seven agitations and sent over 25,000 volunteers to court arrest, and that when the Centre asked them for their demands they sent a list of 45.