(March 1998 to October 1999)

After the elections of 1998 the BJP joined up with several regional parties to stake its chance to form the government. The group became known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP was chosen to lead the NDA, and in March 1998 he was sworn in as prime minister, for the second time. The NDA proved its majority in the Lok Sabha.

The government lasted till April 1999 when the AIADMK withdrew from the NDA. In a dramatic no- confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999, the government lost by a single vote. This loss is generally

attributed to the vote of Giridhar Gamang who, despite having been chief minister of Orissa for a couple of months, had not yet resigned from the Lok Sabha, so was technically still an MP.

With the Opposition not able to come up with an alternative to form the new government, the Lok Sabha was dissolved by President K.R. Narayanan, and fresh elections were held in September-October 1999. Vajpayee remained caretaker prime minister till the elections.

In the meanwhile, Sharad Pawar and some leaders left the Congress when the party chose Sonia Gandhi as its head.

The few months the Vajpayee government was in power were marked by some notable events.

Pokhran II: Operation Shakti

In May 1998, a series of five nuclear explosions was conducted by India at the Indian Army’s Pokhran Test Range. This was the second time, the first time being in 1974, that such devices were being tested. Termed Operation Shakti it involved the underground detonation of a regular fission device, fusion devices as well as a ‘sub-kiloton’ device. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee convened a press conference to declare India a full-fledged nuclear state. The main scientists involved were A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (a future President of India) who was a scientific adviser to the prime minister and head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and R. Chidambaram who was Director of the Department of Atomic Energy.

May 11, incidentally, is celebrated as National Technology Day.

The world, especially the US, was shocked, as the detonations were conducted with utmost secrecy. The relations between the US and India plunged to an all-time low. The US implemented the Glenn Amendment for the first time. Newer sanctions were imposed, and at one point it looked that relations would never recover.

Pakistan reacted with its own nuclear tests, Chagai I and II, also in May 1998, as if it were responding in kind to India.

In June, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the Indian and Pakistani tests.