Step 1 of 5 · Election Commission
Results declared
Returning Officers declare each seat; ECI sends the list of elected members to the President (or Governor for a state).
✶ Articles 75 & 164 · Confidence of the house
272 of 543.
Indians don't vote for a Prime Minister. They elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha, and whoever can hold the support of more than half of them governs. Since 1989, that has usually meant a coalition. Build one.
0 seats in your government · 272 needed of 543
Government
Unaligned
Opposition
Tap a party to cycle it government → opposition → unaligned, drag it between columns, or focus it and use ← →.
How it works
From count day
to a floor test.
Step through · Forming a government
Who gets to govern?
The Constitution never mentions parties or coalitions. Here is the convention, and the case law, that fills the gap.
Step 2 of 5 · President / Governor
Invitation
Article 75 (Article 164 for states) lets the President appoint as Prime Minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the house: a party or pre-poll alliance with a majority, otherwise the claimant with letters of support.
Step 3 of 5 · Prime Minister & ministers
Oath
The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers are sworn in. In 2024 the NDA's leader was sworn in on 9 June with partners' support letters, BJP alone holding 240 of 543 seats.
Step 4 of 5 · House
Floor test
Where support is in doubt, the President or Governor asks the government to prove its majority on the floor by a confidence vote. S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) made the floor of the house, not the Raj Bhavan, the place to test a majority.
Step 5 of 5 · Lok Sabha
Staying in office
The government survives as long as it keeps the confidence of the Lok Sabha. Any 50 members can move a no-confidence motion. In April 1999 the Vajpayee government lost a confidence vote by one vote (269–270).
Pre-poll vs post-poll
A pre-poll alliance (the NDA and INDIA in 2024) shares out seats before voting so that partners don't split each other's vote under first-past-the-post. A post-poll alliance forms after the results. Both are political agreements, not legal entities, and partners can leave at any time.
Outside support
A party can vote for a government on confidence motions without joining the Council of Ministers. That is how the minority governments of 1989, 1996 and 2004 survived. In this builder, put such a party in the government column: what counts is its vote.
Why defections are rare
The Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law, 1985) disqualifies a member who votes against their party's whip on a confidence vote. So coalitions change by whole parties switching sides, not by individual members. Try the defection explainer →
Majority of whom?
A confidence vote needs a majority of members present and voting, not of the whole house. With abstentions, a minority government can survive below 272. A constitutional amendment, by contrast, needs a majority of the total membership and two-thirds of those voting.
Precedent
Fifty years of
coalitions.
- 1977
Janata Party
Several opposition parties merge after the Emergency and win 295 seats: the first non-Congress government. It falls in 1979 as the merger splits.
- 1989
National Front
A minority government under V.P. Singh survives with outside support from both the BJP and the Left, until the BJP withdraws in 1990.
- 1996
United Front
After a 13-day BJP government fails to win a majority, a 13-party front governs with Congress support from outside. Two Prime Ministers in two years.
- 1998–2004
NDA
The BJP builds a pre-poll alliance of regional parties. It loses a confidence vote by one in 1999, wins the snap election, and completes a full term.
- 2004–14
UPA
A post-poll alliance led by Congress governs for two terms, the first with Left support from outside, which is withdrawn in 2008 over the US nuclear deal.
- 2024
NDA, third term
After a decade of single-party BJP majorities, the BJP falls 32 short. TDP (16) and JD(U) (12) are the largest partners in the NDA's 293.