Congress takes over after a merger
What happened
A new party took charge of Jammu & Kashmir's assembly this election, winning comfortably.
The Indian National Congress won 61 of the state's 75 seats — a landslide by seat share.
That left it 23 seats clear of the 38-seat majority mark.
The nearest rival, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, took just 8.
What changed
Governing power changed hands, and the party that took over had not previously won a seat in this record under this name.
The INC held 0 seats going into this election; it left with 61.
Turnout — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — held almost steady at 39.7%.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from the results stand out.
The closest race was in Khanyar, Jammu & Kashmir, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 61.
The widest margin went the other way, in Gulabgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, where the winner finished 92.7% of the vote ahead.
Turnout peaked in Leh, Jammu & Kashmir, where 79.7% of registered voters cast a ballot.
The most crowded contest was Ranbirsinghpura, Jammu & Kashmir, where 8 candidates stood.
The backdrop
The party that had governed the previous assembly did not contest this election under its old name.
On 10 January 1965, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference's working committee voted to dissolve and merge into the Indian National Congress, though a rival faction led by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad contested the 1967 election separately under the National Conference name. Congress governed through the 1972 election too, until Sheikh Abdullah revived the National Conference under the 1975 Kashmir Accord.