The Bharatiya Janata Party, campaigning under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, emerged as the largest single party but fell short of a majority.¹

It won 161 of the 543 seats on offer.

That left it well short of the 272-seat mark needed for a majority — a hung house, where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.

The Indian National Congress finished second, with 140 seats on 28.8% of the vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate.

Even with allies, it held 172 seats in total — still short of a majority.

In September 1995 the Janata Dal-led National Front regrouped with the Left Front and the Telugu Desam Party to present a joint 'Third Force' as an alternative to Congress and the BJP.²

In November 1995, BJP president Lal Krishna Advani declared Atal Bihari Vajpayee the party's prime ministerial candidate for the coming election, months before campaigning began.¹

In January 1996 the Jain hawala scandal implicated politicians across parties, including Advani, who resigned as a Lok Sabha member while continuing to lead the BJP's campaign as party president. On 30 January the Supreme Court, hearing the case, barred any settlement without its leave as chargesheets were filed in the Special Court.³⁴

On 29 March, G K Moopanar led a breakaway faction of the Tamil Nadu Congress to found the Tamil Maanila Congress, after national Congress leader P V Narasimha Rao decided to ally with the AIADMK. The new party then contested the election allied with the DMK.⁵

The Election Commission then held the vote in three phases, on 27 April, 2 May and 7 May, during T N Seshan's tenure as Chief Election Commissioner.⁶

The single biggest movement ran from INC to Bharatiya Janata Party.

It covered 47 seats.

263 of 543 constituencies changed hands nationwide since the last election.

The BJP itself grew from 121 seats to 161 seats this time.

The INC's winning streak ended here — it had won 4 elections in a row before this one.

Nationally, turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — rose +2.0 pp, to about 57.1%.

Baroda, Gujarat saw the tightest finish of the election, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of 17 votes.

Tura, Meghalaya saw the widest margin of the election, with the winner finishing 65.8% ahead of the runner-up.

Turnout peaked at Tamluk, West Bengal, where 88.5% of registered voters cast a ballot — the highest of any seat that year.

Thane, Maharashtra had the largest electorate anywhere in the country, with 28,32,514 registered voters on its rolls.

Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh drew the most candidates of any seat, 480 names on the ballot.

New parties broke into the winners' list for the first time this election: TMC(M) and SAP.

BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister but could not secure enough support in the Lok Sabha, resigning after 13 days without a floor vote.⁷

A coalition of regional and left parties called the United Front then formed a government with outside support from the INC, first under H D Deve Gowda and then, from 1997, under I K Gujral.⁸