Indian National Congress won the most seats of the 9th General Election, leaving a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.

It won 197 seats, down from the 414 it held going in.

That left it short of the 265-seat majority mark; Janata Dal finished second with 143 seats.

Its 39.5% vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate — was well ahead of JD's 17.8%, but that lead did not translate into control of the house.

On 6 April 1980, after the Janata Party alliance broke apart, members from its Bharatiya Jana Sangh wing founded the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its first president.¹

In April 1987, Swedish radio reported that the arms manufacturer Bofors had paid kickbacks to secure a large Indian howitzer contract, implicating figures close to Rajiv Gandhi's government and dogging his final term in office.²

On 11 October 1988, VP Singh merged several opposition groups — his own Jan Morcha, the Janata Party and the Lok Dal — into a single party, the Janata Dal, which then joined regional parties in an alliance called the National Front to contest the election against Congress.³

In December 1988, Parliament passed the 61st Constitutional Amendment, lowering the minimum voting age for Lok Sabha and state assembly elections from 21 to 18; it took effect in March 1989, bringing millions of newly eligible young voters into that November's electorate.⁴

JD made the biggest gains of the election, picking up seats mostly at INC's expense.

It picked up 134 of them.

322 of 529 constituencies changed hands nationwide — well over half the house.

INC's vote share moved -8.6 pp from the last election.

Nationally, turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — moved -1.9 pp, to about 61.1%.

Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh saw the tightest finish of the election: the winner's margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — was 9 votes.

Anantnag, Jammu & Kashmir saw the widest margin of the election, with the winner finishing 97.2% of the vote ahead of the runner-up.

Turnout peaked in Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, where 86.4% of registered voters cast a ballot — the highest of any seat in the country.

Outer Delhi, Delhi had the largest electorate anywhere in the country, with 15,74,973 registered voters on its rolls.

Bhiwani, Haryana drew the most candidates of any seat, with 121 names on the ballot.

In April 1987, Swedish radio reported that Bofors had paid kickbacks to secure a large Indian howitzer contract, implicating figures close to Rajiv Gandhi's government through his final term in office.²

On 11 October 1988, VP Singh brought several opposition groups together into a single new party, the JD, which then joined regional allies in an alliance called the National Front to contest the election against INC.³

Millions of newly eligible young voters entered the electorate after Parliament's 61st Constitutional Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, effective from March 1989.⁴