[7] Manmohan Singh became the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.

[9][10] The election, while following the normal five-year cycle, came after a break in the first UPA alliance after the left parties withdrew their support due to the Indo-US nuclear deal and forcing a vote of confidence, which Singh's government survived.

The 2009 elections adopted re-drawn electoral constituencies based on the 2001 census, following the 2002 Delimitation Commission of India, whose recommendations were approved in February 2008.

This affected the National Capital Region of Delhi, the Union Territory of Puducherry and all the states except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur and Nagaland.

[11] While comparing election results, it must be borne in mind that in many instances a constituency with the same name may reflect a significantly different population demographic as well as a slightly altered geographical region.

This was done mainly to avoid vulnerability to threat and intimidation, to overcome geographical barriers and to reduce the distance travelled by voters.

[11] The CEC announced that the polling station in Banej village in the Una segment of Junagadh, Gujarat had the unique claim to being the only polling station in the country that catered to a single elector – Guru Shree Bharatdasji Bapu, a priest of a Shiva temple in the middle of the Gir Forest.

This election also saw the entire country except the states of Assam, Nagaland and Jammu & Kashmir use photo electoral rolls.

[16] Eventually, on 1 March 2009, President Patil rejected Gopalaswami's recommendation to remove Chawla after the Government advised her to do so.

The Third Front announced repeatedly through the campaigning period that their prime ministerial candidate would only be decided after the election results came out.

[25] On 24 January 2009, Manmohan Singh underwent a cardiac bypass surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

In an attempt to quell such speculations, Sonia Gandhi on 6 February 2009, confirmed that Manmohan Singh would be the UPA's PM candidate by writing so in the Congress party magazine Sandesh.

[33] The manifesto highlighted all the achievements of the UPA Government over the last five years in power and identified improving various policies to favour more rural & under-privileged sections of the Indian society.

[34] The Congress campaign ran into trouble when the Election Commission took exception to a full page advertisement on the 2010 Commonwealth Games taken out in major Delhi newspapers.

The manifesto laid a lot of importance on requiring strong, POTA-like anti-terrorism laws and vowed to make India a safer place if the BJP is elected.

After reviewing the incident, the EC found Varun Gandhi guilty of violating the model code of conduct by creating feeling of enmity and hatred between different communities and issued a recommendation the BJP to drop him from their list of candidates.

The Third Front tried to contest the election, hoping to create a non-BJP, non-Congress government, by attracting many local and regional parties, that were once with the other two alliances.

Although SMS had been used during prior elections, political parties had realised that the rural and illiterate voters which form a majority could not read.

Young and technology savvy politicians quickly realised that voice was the way to reach out to the rural community as they could speak their language.

The opinion polls reckoned that other regional parties would play an important role by winning a substantial number of seats.

There were incidents of violence in a few places in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra and between 17 and 19 people were killed in Naxal attacks.

[54] The dead included five poll officials and 10 security personnel, whose families received a compensation of Rs 1 million.

[55] Naxals set fire to voting machines, attacked voters, security personnel and polling workers, and destroyed vehicles.

The MPP claimed that the Congress workers captured 11 booths in the Andro Assembly segment of Imphal East.

However, Maoist guerrillas exploded a landmine in West Bengal's Purulia district, injuring a paramilitary trooper.

Apart from bomb attacks in West Bengal's Asansol and Murshidabad districts that killed one person each and some violence in Rajasthan, this phase was relatively peaceful.

[78] Another factor was the vote-splitting by the Third Front, especially the BSP and MNS in Maharashtra, which resulted in the Indian National Congress gaining many of its seats without getting a majority in the corresponding constituency.

The three independent candidates to extend support for UPA were all from Maharashtra, and they were Sadashiv Mandlik, from Kolhapur constituency, Raju Shetty, from the political party Swabhimani Paksha, who won from Hatkandagle and Baliram Jadhav from Bahujan Vikas Aghadi party who won the Palghar constituency.

Kanimozhi, daughter of the DMK leader M. Karunanidhi, decided not to join the new government cabinet, instead she wanted to focus on improving the parties image.

[86][87] On 25 May 2009, DMK decided to join the UPA government, reversing the decision made in prior days to extend outside support.