Indian general election in Tamil Nadu, 1998

Indian general election in Tamil Nadu, 1998

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39 seats
First party Second party   Leader J. Jayalalithaa M. Karunanidhi Party AIADMK DMK Alliance NDA UF Seats won 30 9 Seat change 30 30 Popular vote 12,169,812 10,937,809 Percentage 45.08% 42.72% Swing 42.18% 12.24%
1998 Election map (by constituencies) Saffron = NDA and Red = UF

The Indian general election, 1998 polls in Tamil Nadu were held for 39 seats in the state. New elections were called when Indian National Congress (INC) left the United Front government led by I.K. Gujral, after they refused to drop the regional Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party from the government after the DMK was linked by an investigative panel to Sri Lankan separatists blamed for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi. The result was a landslide victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning 29 seats, which helped result in Atal Bihari Vajpayee being sworn in as the 16th Prime Minister of India. J. Jayalalithaa and the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, broke off from their long alliance with Indian National Congress and formed an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party, by joining the National Democratic Alliance. This state proved to be very important in determining the prime minister, since the 18 seats of ADMK proved valuable for BJP to hold power. That was short-lived, since the ADMK left the alliance in less than a year, and BJP lost the vote of confidence resulting in fresh elections being called.

Source: Frontline

Source: Indian Express

†: Seat change represents seats won in terms of the current alliances, which is considerably different from the last election.
‡: Vote % reflects the percentage of votes the party received compared to the entire electorate in Tamil Nadu that voted in this election. Adjusted (Adj.) Vote %, reflects the % of votes the party received per constituency that they contested.