40 years ago November 6, 1986: Democrats seize Senate

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on November 07, 1986.

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on November 07, 1986.

2 min readNov 6, 2026 06:40 AM IST First published on: Nov 6, 2026 at 06:40 AM IST

The Democrats regained control of the United States Senate in the midterm elections by a stunning 55 seats to 45 and picked up a few extra seats in the House of Representatives, where they are already in comfortable control. However, the Republicans wrested a few governorships from the Democrats, including in Texas.

Opposition walkout from House

Almost the entire Opposition walked out of the Lok Sabha after clashes with the Speaker and Congress(I) members. The opposition members were demanding acceptance of their adjournment motion over the Prime Minister’s statement on the Gorkhaland agitation.

SC on suing foreign states

The Supreme Court declared that the Union government must normally accord permission to a citizen who seeks to sue a foreign government in this country except when the claim is frivolous. This significant ruling was given in the case of a maintenance engineer who was denied permission to sue the Algerian embassy here for service charges.

US dismisses report

The White House dismissed as “speculative” a report in the US press quoting intelligence as stating that Pakistan had detonated a high-explosive device. These disclosures were made by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post. He stated that according to US intelligence, Pakistan could have a small nuclear weapon in the not-so-distant future.