The Indian National Congress returned to power in Karnataka after the governing Janata Dal split apart.

It won a landslide, taking 132 of the state's 224 seats.

That left it 19 seats clear of the 113-seat majority mark.

It took 58.9% of the seats on 40.8% of the vote.

The Bharatiya Janata Party followed with 44 seats on 20.7% of the vote.

The governing Janata Dal split in mid-1999, ahead of Karnataka's assembly election. Chief Minister J H Patel, party president C Byre Gowda and Ramakrishna Hegde allied their faction with the Bharatiya Janata Party, while H D Deve Gowda and deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah led the other.¹

On 4 August 1999 the Election Commission froze the party's Chakra election symbol and granted ad-hoc recognition to two factions for the upcoming general election: the Sharad Yadav-led group as Janata Dal (United) and the Deve Gowda-led group as Janata Dal (Secular).²

Karnataka's 224-seat assembly election was then held in two phases: 120 constituencies, notified on 11 August, polled on 5 September, and 104 more, notified on 17 August, polled on 11 September, with both counted together on 6 October 1999.³

The JD split into two rival parties months before the vote.

Two new parties, JD(U) and JD(S), entered the assembly for the first time — the two halves of the old undivided party.

Its run in government ended in collapse after 1 term.

The single biggest swing ran from JD to INC, covering 70 of the 171 seats that changed hands.

The tightest finish: Bagalkot, Karnataka was decided by 138 votes — the narrowest margin, how far ahead the winner finished over whoever came second, anywhere in the state that year.

At the other extreme, Gurmitkal, Karnataka was won by a margin of 66.3% of the vote.

Uttarahalli, Karnataka was the state's largest constituency by registered voters, with 9,93,571 names on the rolls — and, in the same seat, turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, was the lowest anywhere that year, at 46.7%.

Puttur, Karnataka recorded the highest turnout in the state, 79.6%, while Challakere, Karnataka drew the most crowded ballot, 14 candidates.

In the 1983 Karnataka election, the Janata Party won 95 of 224 seats, short of a majority on its own, and Ramakrishna Hegde was sworn in as Chief Minister with outside support from the BJP and independents — the state's first non-Congress government.⁴

That Janata Party lineage became the JD, which split again in 1999, the year INC returned to power.¹

6 parties won seats that year, including 19 that went to independents.