Hung Assembly: What It Means and What Happens Next

A hung assembly is a state legislature where no single party or pre-poll alliance wins a majority of seats. This piece explains who gets invited to form the government, the Sarkaria order of preference, why the floor test settles everything after SR Bommai, and the real cases from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Bihar that examiners expect you to cite.

What a hung assembly actually is

A hung assembly is a state legislative assembly in which no single party, and no pre-poll alliance, has won more than half the seats. In a 224 member house like Karnataka, that means nobody crossed 113. The result is a house without an automatic Chief Minister.

The phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution. It is a media and political term for a situation the Constitution handles indirectly, through Article 164, which says the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor and the ministers hold office during his pleasure. Read that with the convention that a government must command the confidence of the house, and the whole problem becomes clear. Somebody has to be invited first. Then that person has to prove numbers on the floor.

Same logic applies at the Centre, where it is called a hung parliament. India has seen several: 1989, 1996, 1998, 1999. Vajpayee's first government in 1996 lasted thirteen days because the numbers were not there.

Who does the Governor invite first?

This is where the discretion lives, and where the controversy lives with it. The Constitution gives no ranking. The Sarkaria Commission (1988) supplied one, and the Punchhi Commission (2010) broadly endorsed it. It is a sequence, not a rulebook, but the Supreme Court and Governors both treat it as the reference point.

The hard question is the one the order does not fully settle: single largest party, or post-poll alliance with the bigger number? Governors have gone both ways, and almost always in the direction that suits the party ruling at the Centre. That is the honest answer, and you can say a version of it in an answer sheet if you phrase it as a criticism of unguided discretion rather than as a political charge.

Preference	Who gets invited
1	The pre-poll alliance or party with the largest number of seats
2	The single largest party staking a claim with support of others, including independents
3	A post-electoral coalition where all partners join the government
4	A post-electoral alliance where some parties join and others support from outside

The floor test settles it, not the Raj Bhavan

SR Bommai v Union of India (1994) is the case you must know. The nine judge bench held that the majority of a government is to be tested on the floor of the house, not by the Governor's subjective assessment in his own drawing room. It also made proclamations under Article 356 subject to judicial review.

Everything since has followed that line. In Karnataka in 2018 the BJP with 104 seats was sworn in, the Supreme Court ordered a floor test within about a day, and Yeddyurappa resigned before the vote. Maharashtra in 2019 ran the same script: the Court ordered a test, and Fadnavis went. In Rameshwar Prasad (2006) the Court held that dissolving the Bihar assembly in 2005 on the Governor's report about horse trading, before any government was formed, was unconstitutional. Nabam Rebia (2016) trimmed the Governor further on summoning the house.

So the modern rule is simple. Invite whoever you reasonably can, then let the house decide, quickly, by a live vote.

Cases worth memorising

Two or three of these, used precisely, will lift an answer above the generic. Notice that in Goa and Manipur in 2017 the single largest party was Congress in both, and in both the Governor invited the BJP led post-poll grouping. Six years earlier the same institution would have been criticised for the opposite choice. The pattern is discretion without a statutory anchor.

Year	State	What happened
2005	Bihar	No government formed, assembly dissolved before a floor test, struck down in Rameshwar Prasad (2006)
2013	Delhi	Hung house, President's Rule, then a minority AAP government with outside support
2017	Goa and Manipur	Congress largest party in both, BJP led post-poll alliances invited and sworn in
2018	Karnataka	BJP largest at 104, sworn in, resigned before the court ordered floor test
2019	Maharashtra	Early morning swearing in, Supreme Court ordered a floor test in 24 hours, government fell

When nobody can form a government

If no combination can show a majority, Article 356 is the fallback. The President's Rule proclamation goes to Parliament within two months, the assembly is usually kept in suspended animation rather than dissolved immediately, and the state waits. Bihar in 2005 is the clean example: February polls produced a hung house, President's Rule followed, fresh elections in October gave a clear verdict.

One more thread ties this together for mains. The Tenth Schedule was supposed to make hung assemblies stable by punishing defection. After the 91st Amendment in 2003 removed the one third split escape route, the tactic shifted to mass resignations and by-elections, which is exactly what happened in Karnataka in 2019 and Madhya Pradesh in 2020. The law closed one door and the practice found another.

When you write on this topic, do not just narrate. Argue that the gap is a codified, binding order of preference and a fixed outer limit for the floor test, both of which Punchhi recommended and neither of which exists.

FAQs

1. Is the term hung assembly used anywhere in the Constitution?

No. The Constitution never uses it. The situation is handled through Article 164 on the appointment of the Chief Minister and the convention that a ministry must retain the confidence of the house.

2. Can the Governor refuse to invite the single largest party?

Yes. The Governor has discretion in choosing whom to invite and can prefer a post-poll alliance that shows a larger number, as happened in Goa and Manipur in 2017. What he cannot do is decide the majority question himself instead of ordering a floor test.

3. How soon must a floor test be held?

There is no fixed constitutional deadline. Courts have imposed short ones in practice, ordering tests within a day or two in Karnataka in 2018 and Maharashtra in 2019, and the Punchhi Commission suggested an outer limit of about thirty days.

4. What is the difference between a hung assembly and a hung parliament?

The mechanics are identical, only the house changes. A hung assembly is a state legislature with no majority party or pre-poll alliance, while a hung parliament refers to the Lok Sabha, as in 1989, 1996 and 1998.

5. Does the anti-defection law prevent MLAs from switching sides in a hung assembly?

It disqualifies individual defectors and, since the 91st Amendment in 2003, only allows a merger of two thirds of a legislature party. It does not stop MLAs from resigning their seats and contesting again, which is the route used in Karnataka in 2019 and Madhya Pradesh in 2020.

6. What happens to the outgoing Chief Minister after a hung verdict?

He continues as a caretaker until a new Chief Minister is sworn in, but by convention a caretaker government takes no major policy decisions.