Campaigning in the Indian general election, 2014

Indian general election, 2014

← 2009 7 April 2014– 12 May 2014 (2014-05-12) 2019 →
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543 seats in the Lok Sabha 272 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	66.38%
First party Second party   Leader Narendra Modi Rahul Gandhi Party BJP INC Alliance NDA UPA Leader since 10 June 2013 19 January 2013 Leader's seat Vadodara, Varanasi Amethi Last election 116 206 Seats won 282 44 Seat change 166 162 Popular vote 171,459,286 106,760,001 Percentage 31.0% 19.3% Swing 13.77% 17.82%
Results of the election by parties and alliances.
Prime Minister before election Manmohan Singh UPA Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi BJP

Manmohan Singh
UPA

Narendra Modi
BJP

The Indian general election of 2014 were held to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha in India. Voting took place in all 543 parliamentary constituencies of India to elect members of parliament in the Lok Sabha. The result of this election was declared on 16 May. The 15th Lok Sabha completed its constitutional mandate on 31 May 2014. Since the last general election in 2009, the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement by Anna Hazare, and other similar moves by Baba Ramdev, have gathered momentum and political interest. Issues such as Inflation, price rise and corruption were some of the chief issues.

There has been much commentary about the large role that social media is expected to play in this general election. The expenditure on social media by political parties has been estimated to be around Rs. 5 billion. In view of this, the Election Commission announced that they would be keeping tabs on the expenditure on social media by political parties and candidates. A Christian group launched a non-partisan popular website called Let's Pray for India where people can adopt a constituency that they will pray for during the election.

Indian National Congress released its manifesto on 29 March 2014. Rights to health, homestead and anti-corruption Bill are the main promises made in its manifesto.Bharatiya Janata Party released its manifesto on 7 April, promising good governance, improving economy and infrastructure, ending policy paralysis and curbing corruption. The BJP was unusually late in releasing their manifesto, doing so on the first day of polling. The 'unprecedented' delay was criticised for depriving the people of Assam and Tripura, who voted in the first phase, an opportunity to know the contents of the manifesto before voting.