A first win for a brand-new party in Assam
What happened
Indian National Congress lost power in Assam, defeated by a brand-new party.
The Janata Party won 53 seats, short of the 64-seat majority mark — a hung house, where no single party has enough seats to govern alone.
It emerged as the largest single party in the new assembly, short of a majority on its own.
What changed
This was also the first election held on a new set of assembly boundaries.
The seats had just been through delimitation — the official redrawing of constituency boundaries, which happens every so often as India's population shifts.
The party that won had never held a single seat here before, going from 0 seats to 53.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that election stand out.
The closest race: Digboi, Assam was decided by just 67 votes — the margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second.
About 64.8% of registered voters turned out to cast a ballot, the highest share Assam had recorded up to that point.
At the other end, Dhing, Assam was won by a margin of 64.3% of the vote — the widest of the election.
The backdrop
The party that had been governing fell to second place instead.
The INC finished with 26 seats.
This was also the first time a non-Congress party had ever formed the state government.
The Janata Party won 53 of 126 seats in the 25 February 1978 Assam Legislative Assembly election, and Golap Borbora was sworn in as Chief Minister on 12 March 1978, forming Assam's first non-Congress state government. Borbora resigned on 4 September 1979 after losing majority support.