IN 1977, there was a strong anti-Indira Gandhi wave in the wake of the Emergency. In 1980, the voters emphatically registered their disapproval of the Janata Party's internal squabbles which led to the collapse of the short-lived government and brought the iron lady of Indian politics back with a thumping majority. Four years later, Rajiv Gandhi rode the crest of a sympathy wave following his mother's assassination and won for his party a record number of seats in Parliament. In 1989, Bofors was the overriding issue that led to a Congress rout in almost the entire North and catapulted V.P. Singh to the prime minister's seat. And, in 1991, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination at Sriperumbudur by the LTTE resurrected the Congress and brought P.V. Narasimha Rao to power. All these elections were bound by one strong common thread: emotion.