section_path: Politics and government/Politics
section_name: Politics
paragraph_text: Politics
  
  India is a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. It has six recognised national parties, including the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and over 50 regional parties. Congress is considered the ideological centre in Indian political culture, whereas the BJP is right-wing. From 1950 to the late 1980s, Congress held a majority in the India's parliament. Afterwards, it increasingly shared power with the BJP, as well as with powerful regional parties, which forced multi-party coalition governments at the centre.
  
  In the Republic of India 's general elections in 1951, 1957, and 1962, Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, won easy victories. On Nehru's death in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded in 1966, by Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who led the Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public discontent with the state of emergency Indira Gandhi had declared in 1975, Congress was voted out of power in 1977; Janata Party, which had opposed the emergency, was voted in. Its government lasted two years; Morarji Desai and Charan Singh served as prime ministers. After Congress was returned to power in 1980, Indira Gandhi was assassinated and succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi, who won easily in the elections later that year. In the 1989 elections a National Front coalition, led by the Janata Dal in alliance with the Left Front, won, lasting just under two years, and V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar serving as prime ministers. In the 1991 Indian general election, Congress, as the largest single party, formed a minority government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao.
  
  After the 1996 Indian general election, the BJP formed a government briefly; it was followed by United Front coalitions, which depended on external political support. Two prime ministers served during this period: H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. In 1998, the BJP formed a coalition — the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDA became the first non-Congress, coalition government to complete a five-year term. In the 2004 Indian general elections, no party won an absolute majority. Still, the Congress emerged as the largest single party, forming another successful coalition: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). It had the support of left-leaning parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA returned to power in the 2009 general election with increased numbers, and it no longer required external support from India's communist parties. Manmohan Singh became the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1957 and 1962 to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year term. In the 2014 general election, the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to win an absolute majority. In the 2019 general election, the BJP regained an absolute majority. In the 2024 general election, a BJP-led NDA coalition formed the government. Narendra Modi, a former chief minister of Gujarat, is serving as the prime minister of India in his third term since May 26, 2014.