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543[a] of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha 272 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Opinion polls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Registered | 834,082,814 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 66.44% (![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results by constituency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha.[1] With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 election. Around 23.1 million or 2.71% of the total eligible voters were aged 18–19 years.[2] A total of 8,251 candidates contested the 543 elected Lok Sabha seats.[3] The average election turnout over all nine phases was around 66.40%, the highest ever in the history of Indian general elections until 2019 election.[3]
The results were declared on 16 May, 15 days before the 15th Lok Sabha completed its constitutional mandate on 31 May 2014.[4] The counting exercise was held at 989 counting centers.[3] The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received 31% of the vote and won 282 seats, while its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a total of 336 seats. Although the Indian National Congress (INC) was defeated by a landslide, the BJP's vote share was the lowest by a party winning a majority of seats since independence,[5] The BJP won 31.2% votes, while NDA's combined vote share was 38.5%. However, the governing coalition had the largest majority since the 1984 elections, and it was the first time since 1984 that a party had won enough seats to govern without the support of other parties.[6][7][8]
In contrast, the result was the worst-ever performance by the Indian National Congress (INC), which had ruled India for most of its post-independence history. The INC received 19.3% of the vote and won only 44 seats, with its wider alliance, the United Progressive Alliance, winning a total of just 59.[9][10][11] In order to become the official opposition party in India, a party must have 55 seats; as a result, there was no official opposition party.[12][13]
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