The Bharatiya Janata Party held on to power, but without a majority of its own this time.

It won 240 seats, short of the 272-seat mark needed for a majority.

The Indian National Congress finished second, taking 99 seats on 21.2% of the vote.

Instead, 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 — reached 273 seats, past the majority mark.

The BJP's vote share — the slice of all ballots cast that went to one party or candidate — was 36.6%, which converted into 44.2% of the seats under India's first-past-the-post system.

In Bengaluru on 18 July 2023, 26 opposition parties announced a new coalition to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced its name, INDIA.¹

On 15 February 2024 the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, struck down the anonymous Electoral Bond donation scheme and ordered the State Bank of India to disclose past donor details to the Election Commission.²

The Election Commission announced the vote's schedule on 16 March 2024: seven phases from 19 April to 1 June, with counting on 4 June.³

During the campaign, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party on 21 March 2024 in a liquor-policy money-laundering case. The Supreme Court later granted him interim bail to campaign, from 10 May to 1 June, ordering him to surrender on 2 June.⁴

On 5 April 2024, Congress released its manifesto, Nyay Patra, promising a nationwide caste census and 30 lakh government jobs. On 8 May 2024, Indian Overseas Congress chairman Sam Pitroda said in a podcast that Indians in the east "look like the Chinese," in the west "like the Arabs," in the north "like...white," and in the south "like Africans." Congress disavowed the remark and Pitroda resigned his post the same day.⁵⁶

BJP kept winning, though with fewer seats than before.

It extended its own streak to 3 consecutive general-election wins.

Its own seat total fell to 240 from 303 at the previous election.

The single biggest movement ran from BJP to INC, covering 43 of the 224 seats that changed hands nationwide.

Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, slipped -1.2 pp to about 66.1%.

Mumbai North West, Maharashtra saw the tightest finish of the election: the winner's margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — was 48 votes.

Indore, Madhya Pradesh saw the widest margin of the election, with the winner finishing 64.5% of the vote ahead of the runner-up.

Turnout peaked at Dhubri, Assam, where 92.3% of registered voters cast a ballot — the highest of any seat in the country.

Malkajgiri, Telangana was the largest constituency by registered voters anywhere in the country, with 37,80,453 names on its rolls.

Karur, Tamil Nadu drew the most candidates of any seat, 55 names on the ballot.

Across the country, 63,72,220 voters chose NOTA — "None of the Above," a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer — 1.0% of all votes cast.

Parliament passed the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act on 2 June 2014, splitting the state and creating Telangana as India's 29th state. Telangana and the residual Andhra Pradesh have voted separately in every general election since 2019.⁷

Jammu and Kashmir lost its special constitutional status when Parliament divided it into the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, effective 31 October 2019 — the 2024 vote was the first general election held under that arrangement.⁸

The Supreme Court also ordered wider checks on paper-trail vote slips, ruling on 8 April 2019 that raised the number of polling stations checked in each assembly segment from one to five.⁹