Results of the 2024 Indian general election

This article describes the performance of various political parties. For the performance of individual candidates, please see, List of members of the 18th Lok Sabha.

Overview

The BJP-led NDA surpassed the majority threshold of 272 and won 293 seats. However, unlike the previous election, the BJP did not win a majority in both houses of parliament having only won 240 seats (losing 63 seats from the 303 seats they previously held since 2019 as well as losing their 10-year long benefit of being the sole-controller of both houses of parliament since 2014) in the Lok Sabha. However, Narendra Modi became the second Indian prime minister to be re-elected for a third consecutive term, since Jawaharlal Nehru's re-election in 1962, the third Indian prime minister to be able to rule for more than 10 years after Nehru (15 years) & Indira Gandhi (14 years) & the second BJP leader after Atal Bihari Vajpayee to be able to lead the party into becoming the single largest party in the Lok Sabha thrice.

The INC-led INDIA alliance gained 234 seats out of which 99 were won by the Congress Party. 37 seats were won by the SP while 29 seats from West Bengal were won by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. The final wins by the alliance were stronger than previous predictions from exit polls.

The BJP lost 63 seats while its two main partners, the TDP and the JD(U), gained 13 seats and lost 4, respectively. Within the opposition alliance, the Congress party gained 47 seats, the SP gained 32 seats, and the Trinamool Congress gained 7 seats. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra had earlier indications of an overwhelming BJP and allies victory but ultimately were won by the opposition with the SP winning in UP, the Trinamool Congress in Bengal and the SS-UBT, the Congress Party and the NCP-SP winning Maharashtra.

According to Reuters, a key reason for BJP losing its majority in 2024 was the narrative by the Opposition parties that BJP's target of obtaining more than 400 seats was aimed to bring about sweeping amendments to the Constitution involving removal of Gandhian ideals as the guiding principles of the government & replacing them with its Hindutva narrative, the most notable among the proposed changes being altering the reservation quotas, based on the remarks by some prominent BJP leaders.

According to the national data from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) – Lokniti National Election Studies published in The Hindu, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) maintained a 3 percentage point lead in the overall national vote share (43% to 40%) over the INDIA alliance. The NDA maintained its strongest age advantage among young voters aged 18–25, capturing 46% of their vote compared to 33% for the INDIA bloc, The INDIA alliance performed best among non-literate voters, leading the NDA by 42% to 38%, whereas the NDA's support scaled up with higher education and economic affluence, peaking at 45% among graduates and 46% among the wealthiest class. Geographically, the spatial divide showed the NDA dominating large metropolitan cities and urban zones with a 45% vote share, but while the NDA bloc surged into a lead in small, semi-urban towns (42% to 41%), rural villages remained highly competitive with the NDA retaining a narrow 42% to 41% edge overall. In terms of communities, the NDA maintained a massive upper-caste Hindu anchor (61%) and held comfortable margins among Other Backward Classes (OBCs), while Scheduled Castes (Dalits) tied perfectly at 31% for both coalitions. Religious minorities, especially the Muslims heavily consolidated behind the opposition, with 65% of Muslims voting for the INDIA alliance,