The Indian National Congress won a landslide majority under Rajiv Gandhi, who had become prime minister weeks earlier after his mother Indira Gandhi's assassination.¹

It won 414 of the 541 seats on offer.

That left it 143 seats clear of the 271-seat majority mark.

The Telugu Desam Party finished second, with 30 seats on 4.1% of the vote.

The INC took 48.1% of the vote, which converted into 76.5% of the seats under India's first-past-the-post system.

[data unavailable] held onto his own seat, Amethi, by [data unavailable] votes.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, founded in 1980 by former Janata Party allies with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its first president, contested its first general election in 1984.²

In June 1984 the Indian Army entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest site, on Indira Gandhi's orders, to clear out armed militants who had occupied it. The operation left heavy casualties and damage to the temple complex.³

On 31 October, Indira Gandhi was shot and killed by two of her own bodyguards at her residence in New Delhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister the same day.¹

In Amethi, Sanjay Gandhi's widow Maneka Gandhi stood as an independent candidate against her brother-in-law Rajiv Gandhi.⁴

The Election Commission then held voting on 24, 27 and 28 December, everywhere except Assam and Punjab. Polling in Assam was postponed amid ongoing unrest, and its delayed election followed in December 1985 after the Assam Accord was signed.⁵⁶

INC won for a second consecutive election.

It extended its own majority, growing from 353 seats to 414.

Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, rose +6.9 pp from the previous election, to about 63.0%.

That was the highest turnout of any general election held up to that point.

It also set the record for the largest single-party seat count of any Lok Sabha election to that point.

The closest race was at Ludhiana, Punjab, decided by 140 votes.

Amethi, Uttar Pradesh saw the widest margin of the election — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — 72.2% of the vote.

Turnout peaked at Barpeta, Assam, where 87.1% of registered voters cast a ballot.

Koraput, Odisha had the lowest turnout of the election, 33.2%.

Bombay North East, Maharashtra was the largest constituency by registered voters, with 10,82,419 on its rolls.

East Delhi, Delhi drew the most candidates of any seat, 42 names on the ballot.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's roots trace to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, whose former members split from the wider Janata Party alliance and registered as a new party in April 1980. Atal Bihari Vajpayee served as its first president when it fought its debut general election that December.²

That election followed a summer in which the Indian Army had entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest site, on Indira Gandhi's orders.³