Vajpayee returns after his government's collapse
What happened
The Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, returned to power at the head of the National Democratic Alliance.1
It won 182 of the 543 seats on offer.
That left it short of the 272-seat mark needed for a majority — a hung house, where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
Together with its allies in the NDA, an alliance — a group of parties that team up to fight an election together, and share power afterward if they win enough seats between them — it held 267 seats altogether.
The Indian National Congress finished second with 114 seats.
It actually drew more of the vote than the Bharatiya Janata Party did — 28.3% against 23.8%.
- 1Vajpayee declares Operation Vijay a success as Kargil fighting ends — Kargil War — Wikipedia
The campaign
On 20 May 1999 Sharad Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar were expelled from the Congress after challenging Sonia Gandhi's fitness to lead the party over her Italian birth. The following month they founded the Nationalist Congress Party, splitting the Congress vote ahead of the poll.2
On 11 July 1999 Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill announced the polling schedule for the 13th Lok Sabha election, spanning from 5 September to 3 October. The schedule was revised on 3 August.3
On 14 July 1999 Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared Operation Vijay a success against Pakistani forces that had crossed into Kargil. Fighting had ceased on 26 July, once the Drass subsector was cleared.1
Concluding a four-day tour of Jammu & Kashmir, Gill said the Commission intended to hold elections for all six Lok Sabha seats in the state, including Ladakh, and was assessing maximum security arrangements.4
On 18 August, Sonia Gandhi flew into Bellary by helicopter and filed her nomination papers 40 minutes before the deadline. The BJP responded by fielding Sushma Swaraj against her, turning the seat into a high-profile contest.5
- 1Vajpayee declares Operation Vijay a success as Kargil fighting ends — Kargil War — Wikipedia
- 2Pawar, Sangma and Anwar expelled from Congress, form Nationalist Congress Party — Nationalist Congress Party — Wikipedia, Congress crisis similar to 1999, but Sonia had emerged stronger — The Federal
- 3Election Commission announces five-phase polling schedule, later revises it — 1999 Indian general election — Wikipedia, The 1999 Indian Parliamentary Elections and the New BJP-led Coalition Government (Solvyns Project, UT Austin)
- 4Chief Election Commissioner tours Jammu & Kashmir, pledges polls in all six seats — The Tribune, 1 August 1999 — Jammu & Kashmir news
- 5Sonia Gandhi files nomination from Bellary; BJP fields Sushma Swaraj against her — The Tribune, 19 August 1999 — front page, Sonia Gandhi — Wikipedia
What changed
The government fighting this election had already fallen earlier that year, losing a confidence vote in the Lok Sabha 270 to 269 after an ally withdrew its support.6
BJP returned with 182 seats.
That matched its 182-seat total from the previous election exactly.
Underneath that, 269 of the 543 comparable constituencies changed hands between parties.
The single biggest movement ran from INC to BJP, covering 48 seats.
Nationally, turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — slipped -1.9 pp from the previous election, to about 59.3%.
- 6Government loses confidence vote by one vote — Second Vajpayee ministry, Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Notable numbers
Ghatampur, Uttar Pradesh saw the tightest finish of the election, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of 105 votes.
Aska, Odisha saw the widest margin of the election as a share of the vote, with the winner finishing 53.5% ahead of the runner-up.
Turnout peaked in Tamluk, West Bengal, at 82.8%, the highest of any seat that year.
Outer Delhi, Delhi had the largest electorate anywhere in the country, with 31,03,525 registered voters on its rolls.
The most crowded ballot was in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, where 32 candidates stood for the seat.
BJP had now won 3 general elections in a row.
The backdrop
The National Democratic Alliance, the coalition that fought this election, had come together the year before, when the BJP and a group of regional allies agreed to contest as one bloc rather than separately.7
After the government fell, Sonia Gandhi, as Leader of the Opposition, staked a claim to form a government of her own. With neither side able to show a working majority, President K R Narayanan dissolved the Lok Sabha on Vajpayee's advice, forcing fresh elections.8
- 7The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance forms — National Democratic Alliance, List of National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 1998 Indian general election
- 8Sonia Gandhi stakes claim to form government; Lok Sabha dissolved — K. R. Narayanan — Wikipedia, 1999 Indian general election — Wikipedia