Indian general election, 1989

1984 ←

22 November, and 26 November 1989

→ 1991

All 545 seats in the Lok Sabha 273 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	V. P. Singh	Rajiv Gandhi	Lal Krishna Advani
Party	Janata Dal	INC	BJP
Alliance	NF	INC+	supported NF
Leader's seat	Fatehpur	Amethi	New Delhi (vacated) Gandhinagar
Seats won	143	197	85
Seat change	143	207	83
Percentage	40.66%	39.53%	11.36%
Swing	New	8.44%	3.62%

Prime Minister before election

Rajiv Gandhi
INC+

Subsequent Prime Minister

V. P. Singh
NF

Rajiv Gandhi
INC+

V. P. Singh
NF

General elections were held in India in 1989 to elect the members of the 9th Lok Sabha. The result was a loss for the Indian National Congress and Rajiv Gandhi, because all the opposition parties formed together a minority government under V. P. Singh and the National Front. The National Front was able to secure the first minority government, since 1947 Independence, with the help of the Left Parties and Bharatiya Janata Party. The Communists and the BJP declined to serve in the government, preferring to support it from outside.

The 1989 Indian general election were held because the previous Lok Sabha has been in power for a five years, and the constitution allowed for new elections. Even though Rajiv Gandhi had won the last election by a landslide, this election saw him trying to fight off scandals that had marred his administration.

The Bofors scandal, rising terrorism in Punjab, the civil war between LTTE and Sri Lankan government were just some of the problems that stared at Rajiv's government. Rajiv's biggest critic was Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who had held the portfolios of the finance ministry and the defence ministry in the government. During Singh's term as defence minister it was rumoured that he possessed damaging information about the Bofors defence deal that could ruin Rajiv's reputation.

But Singh was soon sacked from the Cabinet and he then resigned from his memberships in the Congress and the Lok Sabha. He formed the Jan Morcha with Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan and re-entered the Lok Sabha from Allahabad. Witnessing V P Singh's meteoric rise on national stage, Rajiv tried to counter him with another prominent Rajput stalwart Satyendra Narain Singh but failed eventually

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