Narendra Modi elected prime minister of India

In India's general election, held in nine phases from April 7 to May 12, 2014, and counted on May 16, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 282 of the 543 elected seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. The ruling Congress party fell to 44 seats, its worst result ever. Narendra Modi, who had been chief minister of Gujarat since 2001, was sworn in as prime minister on May 26.¹

It was the first time since 1984 that one party had won a majority in the Lok Sabha, ending a long run of coalition governments. The vote came under the system set out in India's 1950 constitution, a first-past-the-post contest across more than 800 million eligible voters. The BJP campaign focused on Modi himself, on development and jobs, and on corruption scandals that had hurt the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh. Turnout was about 66 percent, the highest India had recorded, with some 550 million people voting.¹

Modi came to office with a reputation as a strong administrator and was also a divisive figure, because of questions about his handling of the 2002 Gujarat riots, from which he was cleared by a Supreme Court-appointed investigation team. In office he launched programs on infrastructure and digital payments, a national sales tax, and an expanded role for the central government. The BJP won a second majority in 2019, and in 2024 it fell short of one alone and led a coalition, with Modi winning a third term.²³