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00:00I, Jawaharlal Nehru, do solemnly affirm I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established.
00:10I, Narendra Damodardas Modi, do solemnly affirm I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established.
00:30A moment that we have only witnessed once before, a Prime Minister taking oath for the third time.
00:36Retaining the top seat in the largest democracy for a third term is not an easy task.
00:42While we await how this term plays out for Prime Minister Modi,
00:45let's rewind to the historic 1962 elections that secured a third term for the then Prime Minister Nehru.
00:54Back in 1962, the elections spanned just 10 days, from February 16 to 25.
01:01Almost 21 crore Indians voted for the third Lok Sabha.
01:05A total of 1,985 candidates contested the election, which saw a turnout of 55.43%,
01:12well above the 47.54% turnout in the 1957 elections.
01:17Votes were cast for 387 General, 76 SC and 31 ST seats in Lok Sabha.
01:23Besides the Congress, national parties were the Communist Party of India,
01:28Praja Socialist Party and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, which was the precursor to today's BJP.
01:34Despite the efforts of the opposition, the Congress Party dominated,
01:38winning 361 seats in the Lok Sabha.
01:41The CPI followed with 29 seats and the BJS secured 14.
01:46Notably, 35 women were elected to the Lok Sabha back then.
01:50Then, on April 10, 1962, Nehru took oath for the third time as the Prime Minister.
01:56I, Jawaharlal Nehru, do solemnly affirm,
01:59I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established.
02:06The election campaign had revealed separatist rhetoric of some opposition parties,
02:11with Nehru expressing his shock.
02:13On March 19, he told the Lok Sabha that he was, and I quote,
02:17shocked beyond measure at what the opponents of the Congress did.
02:21Nehru was speaking about the DMK party, which had run a radical campaign and won
02:26seven seats in Madras and emerged as a major force there.
02:29Later that year, on October 28, 1962, China invaded India,
02:35shaking the foundation of Nehru's foreign policy of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai.
02:43Following this, the Congress Party suffered defeats in several
02:46by-polls held between the 1962 Lok Sabha election and July 1963.
02:52These setbacks allowed opposition leaders to go ahead for the first
02:55no-confidence motion against Nehru's government in August 1963.
03:00Nehru managed to defeat the motion, and after serving for 16 years and 286 days,
03:07the longest prime ministerial tenure in India so far,
03:10Nehru passed away following a fatal heart attack on May 27, 1964, in New Delhi.
03:16From Nehru to Modi, one thing that is unquestionably advanced
03:20is the journey of India's democracy.