India elections 2024: Record high 744 political parties contesting

Panorama of parties Number of parties contesting Indian elections is at its highest, but expected winners remain unchanged. Besides nearly a billion voters and more than a million polling stations, Indian general elections are big for another reason: the sheer number of aspirants. The two large parties that have led most of India’s governments so far have fielded 769 candidates this year. Two packed circles show the number of candidates fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress in the 2024 general elections in India. Then there are more than 30 other parties contesting this year that won at least one seat in the previous election in 2019. More than thirty extra circles show candidates filed by more than 30 other parties that had won at least one seat in the previous election in 2019. That is not all. Hidden behind a heated contest between large parties are more than 700 less-known political parties clamouring for attention with diverse ideologies and ambitions, even if their chances of victory are very low. More than 700 circles show all the parties that have fielded candidates in this year's elction. Never before have so many parties contested for the Lok