Bharatiya Janata Party stayed on as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha.

Its streak as the largest party now stood at 2 elections in a row.

It won 182 seats, 21 more than it had won in 1996.

No single party crossed the 272-seat majority mark, leaving a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.

Indian National Congress finished second, winning 141 seats.

Its 25.8% share of the vote was fractionally ahead of BJP's own 25.6%, even though it won far fewer seats.

After the 1996 election left no party with a majority, the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister but could not secure enough support in the Lok Sabha, and resigned after 13 days, without a floor vote taking place.¹

A coalition of regional and left parties called the United Front then formed a government with outside support from Congress, first under H D Deve Gowda and then, from April 1997, under I K Gujral.²

Congress then withdrew its outside support, after the United Front government refused to drop the DMK as a coalition partner, following a commission report on the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Prime Minister Gujral resigned, and the Lok Sabha was dissolved for an early election.³

Ahead of the vote, the BJP and a group of regional allies — the Samata Party, Shiv Sena, Akali Dal, AIADMK and others — formed a coalition called the National Democratic Alliance to contest the election together.⁴

INC lost more ground to BJP than to any other party.

35 seats moved that way.

Altogether 276 of the country's 543 constituencies changed hands since the last election.

Nationally, BJP's vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate — moved +5.3 pp from the previous election, against -3.0 pp for INC.

Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, rose +4.1 pp from the last election, to about 61.2%.

Rajmahal, Bihar saw the tightest finish of the election: the margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — was 9 votes.

Nagaland, Nagaland saw the widest margin of the election, with the winner finishing 73.4% of the vote ahead of the runner-up.

Turnout peaked in Tamluk, West Bengal, where 85.6% 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 29,26,563 registered voters on its rolls.

Ongole, Andhra Pradesh drew the most candidates of any seat, 34 names on the ballot.

A coalition of regional and left parties called the United Front governed India after the 1996 election with outside support from Congress, first under H D Deve Gowda and then, from April 1997, under I K Gujral.²

Congress withdrew that support after the United Front refused to drop the DMK as a coalition partner, following a commission report on the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the Lok Sabha was dissolved for an early election once Gujral resigned.³