A hung assembly is one where no party or pre-declared alliance has won a majority of seats. Nobody can form a government on their own numbers, and what follows is governed more by convention than by detailed rules.
Why it happens so readily
Under first-past-the-post, each seat goes to whoever polls the most votes there. Seat totals therefore bear no fixed relationship to vote share, and in a genuine three-way contest a plurality of seats on a third of the vote is entirely normal.
What happens next
The Governor, or the President in the case of the Lok Sabha, invites someone to form a government. The convention is to call the leader most likely to command a majority, usually the single largest party or a pre-poll alliance that has declared its leader.
That person must then win a floor test, a confidence vote in the house. The floor test is the thing that settles it. An invitation is not a government.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the floor of the house is the only legitimate forum for deciding majority, and has ordered floor tests held promptly, sometimes within a day, to limit horse-trading.
Coalitions and the forms they take
- Pre-poll alliance: parties contest together with a seat-sharing agreement, and their combined total is treated as one bloc.
- Post-poll coalition: parties that fought separately combine afterwards and share office.
- Outside support: a party supports the government on confidence votes without taking ministries, which it can withdraw.
Outside support is the least stable arrangement, because the supporting party carries none of the responsibility and can leave without resigning anything.
Where defection law comes in
Individual members cannot simply cross over. The Tenth Schedule disqualifies a member who voluntarily gives up party membership or defies a whip, with an exception only where two-thirds of a legislature party merge.
This is why, in a hung house, movement tends to come either as a single resignation or as a bloc large enough to clear the two-thirds bar.
If nobody can govern
Where no combination can win a floor test, the assembly may be kept in suspended animation or dissolved, and President’s rule may follow, leading eventually to a fresh election.
A government formed mid-term serves only the remainder of the assembly’s term, in the same way a by-election winner does.
The caretaker convention
Between a result and a new government taking office, the outgoing ministry continues in a caretaker capacity. Convention, not statute, restrains what it does: routine administration continues, but major policy decisions, large contracts and significant appointments are expected to wait for the incoming government.
The same restraint applies while a government that has lost a floor test remains in office pending a successor. A caretaker ministry retains the legal powers of government and is expected not to use them, which is precisely the kind of arrangement that depends on being observed rather than enforced.
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