About 300 million Indians went to the polls last week, but they were not cheering for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the way they did when he ran in 1984, two months after the assassination of his mother Indira. Surveys showed that the five-party National Front coalition, led by the mild, bespectacled V.P. Singh, stood a good chance of beating Gandhi's Congress (I) Party. Since independence, Congress has been defeated only once.
Charges of corruption have been the opposition's strongest electoral weapon, particularly allegations that officials in Gandhi's government accepted some $50 million in kickbacks from the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors....
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