A house with no majority
What happened
Indian National Congress lost power, and its replacement fell just short of governing alone.
It was a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.
The Shiromani Akali Dal won 58 of the 117 seats.
The Janata Party, contesting for the first time, finished second with 25.
What changed
This was also the first election held on a new set of constituency boundaries.
The boundaries had just gone through delimitation — the official redrawing of constituency boundaries, which happens every so often as India's population shifts.
The assembly grew from 104 seats to 117.
The SAD's own seat count grew too, from 24 to 58.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that count stand out.
The tightest race was Shutrana, Punjab, decided by just 135 votes — the margin, how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second.
Nabha, Punjab recorded the highest turnout of the election — the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot — at 77.4%.
Nawan Shahr, Punjab carried the largest electorate on the new map, with 98,294 voters on its rolls.
Anandpur Sahib - Ropar, Punjab drew the most candidates of any seat, 19 in all.
The backdrop
This election also fell within the first decade of the state's present-day boundaries.
Parliament's Punjab Reorganisation Act, passed in September 1966, took effect on 1 November 1966: most of the state's territory formed the new state of Haryana, hill districts transferred to Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh became a shared union territory capital. The 1967 assembly election was the first held on this reduced map.