Government · 2024–present

Modi III Government

Governing without a single-party majority for the first time since 2014, how has coalition dependency changed this government's room to manoeuvre on contested legislation and security decisions?

Prime MinisterNarendra Modi

Party / CoalitionNDA

What India looked like on taking office

The June 2024 general election ended the BJP's single-party parliamentary majority, which it had held since 2014; the party won 240 seats on its own, short of the 272 needed for a majority, and the NDA formed government only with the support of two pivotal regional allies, the Telugu Desam Party (Andhra Pradesh) and the Janata Dal (United) (Bihar), each with substantial bargaining leverage given the government's dependence on their combined seats. This reintroduced a coalition-arithmetic dynamic to central government that had not applied to Modi's first two terms, last seen in this dataset's Vajpayee and United Front-era dossiers. The economy entered this term with GDP growth still comparatively strong by global standards but slowing from the immediate post-pandemic recovery rate, alongside persistent concerns about jobless growth and consumption demand raised by several independent economists.

Governing philosophy

Continuation of the prior two terms' formalisation, infrastructure, and digital-state-building direction, but conducted for the first time under genuine coalition constraint, requiring negotiated concessions to allied parties (including a large special financial package for Andhra Pradesh, a key TDP demand, and continued Special Category-adjacent funding commitments to Bihar) that a single-party majority government would not have needed to make. This dossier covers a government that remains in office; its entries reflect the most consequential developments through early 2026, and, unlike every other government in this chronology, cannot yet offer a settled long-term outcome assessment. Verdicts marked 'too early to assess' should be read as a deliberate statement of insufficient evidence, not a rating of zero.

Major policies and reforms

political decision · Introduced 2024-06-09 (government formed)

Coalition governance under NDA seat dependency

Problem: For the first time since 2014, the BJP could not govern without securing and retaining the continued support of coalition allies with independent bargaining power and their own state-level political interests.

Who it targeted: N/A, a structural governance condition rather than a targeted policy

Mechanism: Cabinet portfolios and budgetary allocations were negotiated with the TDP and JD(U) as coalition partners rather than distributed as a single-party government would; contentious legislation and personnel decisions the BJP might have pursued unilaterally in its first two terms (for example, some initially reported plans around the Waqf Act and delimitation timing) were reported by multiple outlets to have been shaped, delayed, or moderated by the need to retain allied support.

Cost: Includes negotiated fiscal commitments to allied states, most visibly a large Andhra Pradesh capital and infrastructure support package announced in the 2024-25 budget, widely reported as a direct response to TDP's coalition leverage.

Original objective: N/A.

Measured outcome: The coalition held together through its first two years without the kind of collapse that ended the 1996-98 United Front or 1989-91 governments examined elsewhere in this chronology, suggesting a more stable coalition-management approach than some of those earlier precedents, aided by the BJP's still-dominant seat share relative to either ally individually. Whether this stability persists through contested issues such as delimitation (redrawing parliamentary constituency boundaries, which could shift seat shares between states in ways some southern allies and states have publicly opposed) remains to be seen.

Problems / criticism: Assessing the net effect of coalition dependency on governance quality, whether it has usefully moderated policy or simply slowed necessary decisions, is not yet possible with the evidence available at time of writing.

Still operating: Yes, ongoing as of this entry's last review date.

VerdictToo early to assessConfidencelow

Sources

ECI — Official election results and voter data
MoF — Union budgets, economic surveys, and fiscal data

political decision · Introduced 2025-05-07 to 2025-05-10

Operation Sindoor and the May 2025 India-Pakistan military confrontation

Problem: A terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir in April 2025 killed 26 civilians, which the Indian government attributed to Pakistan-based militant groups, escalating tensions with Pakistan.

Who it targeted: Military and border populations in India and Pakistan; the broader bilateral relationship

Mechanism: India conducted 'Operation Sindoor', a series of missile strikes on what it described as terrorist infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, followed by several days of cross-border military exchanges including drone and missile strikes on military targets by both sides, before a ceasefire was reached on 10 May 2025.

Cost: Military expenditure and materiel losses on both sides during the engagement; casualty figures reported by each government were disputed and, in several instances, contradicted by the other side's claims and by independent open-source military analysts.

Original objective: Deter future cross-border terrorism attributed to Pakistan-based groups and demonstrate a more assertive military response doctrine than India's previous approach following comparable incidents.

Measured outcome: A ceasefire was reached within days, and both governments claimed to have achieved their military objectives, claims that are difficult to independently verify given the classified and contested nature of battle-damage assessments from both sides; the underlying dispute over cross-border terrorism and the broader India-Pakistan relationship remained unresolved. A comprehensive independent assessment of the operation's military and strategic effectiveness had not been published by credible third-party sources as of this entry's last review.

Problems / criticism: As with most short, high-intensity military confrontations, both governments' official casualty and damage claims are contested by the other side and by some independent analysts, and a definitive account is not yet available; this entry will require revision as more verified information becomes available.

Still operating: N/A, the immediate military engagement concluded with the ceasefire; broader India-Pakistan tension continues.

VerdictToo early to assessConfidencelow

Sources

MoD Official History (1962 War) — Government-commissioned official history of the 1962 war, portions of which remained classified for decades before partial declassification
MHA — Nodal ministry for internal security and constitutional matters, including the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019

political decision · Introduced 2025-04-05 (passed by Parliament and given presidential assent)

Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025

Problem: The government argued that Waqf Boards, statutory bodies managing Islamic charitable endowment properties, lacked adequate transparency, oversight, and dispute-resolution mechanisms, and that the boards' land-claim powers had in some instances been used to assert control over disputed or third-party property without adequate verification.

Who it targeted: Waqf Boards and the Muslim community properties and institutions they administer

Mechanism: Amended the Waqf Act, 1995 to require non-Muslim members on Waqf Boards and the Central Waqf Council, transferred certain waqf-property dispute adjudication from Waqf Tribunals toward district collectors and revenue authorities, and introduced new documentation requirements for waqf-property claims, among other provisions.

Cost: No significant direct fiscal cost; primarily a regulatory and administrative restructuring.

Original objective: Improve transparency and accountability in waqf property administration and reduce disputed or contested land claims.

Measured outcome: The Act passed Parliament amid significant opposition from Muslim organisations and opposition parties, who characterised several provisions, particularly the non-Muslim board membership requirement and the shift of adjudication authority away from Waqf Tribunals, as an intrusion on religious community self-governance rather than a neutral transparency measure. The Supreme Court, hearing constitutional challenges to the Act, issued interim orders in 2025 addressing some contested provisions while the substantive constitutional challenge remained pending as of this entry's last review.

Problems / criticism: Because the Act's central constitutional questions remained before the Supreme Court and its practical administrative effects were still unfolding at time of writing, a settled assessment of whether it achieves its stated transparency objective without unduly constraining waqf institutions' self-governance is not yet possible.

Still operating: Yes, in force, subject to the outcome of ongoing Supreme Court proceedings.

VerdictToo early to assessConfidencelow

Sources

Supreme Court — Official judgements and orders
Constitution, Art. 17 — Abolition of untouchability, published by the Ministry of Law and Justice

structural reform · Introduced 2025 (GST Council rate rationalisation reforms; Income Tax Act, 2025 passed to replace the Income Tax Act, 1961, effective from assessment year 2026-27)

GST rate rationalisation ("GST 2.0") and the Income Tax Act, 2025

Problem: The GST structure retained multiple rate slabs whose complexity and classification disputes had been a recurring criticism since the tax's 2017 introduction (documented in this dataset's Modi-government dossier), and the original Income Tax Act, 1961 had, after more than six decades and hundreds of amendments, become widely regarded by tax practitioners as unnecessarily complex and difficult to navigate.

Who it targeted: GST-registered businesses and consumers; all income taxpayers

Mechanism: The GST Council agreed a rationalisation of GST slabs, moving toward a simpler two-primary-rate structure (plus a special higher rate for select luxury and 'sin' goods) and removing or reducing rates on several categories of goods; separately, Parliament passed a redrafted Income Tax Act, 2025 intended to simplify the statute's language and structure without materially changing tax rates or policy, replacing the 1961 Act's accumulated complexity with a more consolidated text.

Cost: GST rate reductions on affected goods categories represented a near-term revenue trade-off for the Centre and states, offset, per government projections, by expected consumption and compliance gains; the Income Tax Act rewrite carried implementation and transition costs for the tax administration and compliance software ecosystem.

Original objective: Simplify GST's rate structure to reduce classification disputes and compliance burden, and modernise the income tax statute's language and structure without changing underlying tax policy.

Measured outcome: Both reforms were sufficiently recent at time of writing that consumption, compliance, and revenue effects could not yet be reliably measured against the stated objectives; early government commentary framed the GST rationalisation as a consumption-boosting measure, a claim that requires at least a few quarters of GST collection and consumption data to assess independently. [gst_council, cbdt]

Problems / criticism: As with any large-scale tax-code rewrite, correctly assessing whether the Income Tax Act, 2025 achieves genuine simplification without introducing new interpretive ambiguities typically requires several years of administrative and judicial practice to determine, evidence not yet available for this entry.

Still operating: Yes, both reforms are in force or in the process of taking effect.

VerdictToo early to assessConfidencelow

Sources

GST Council — Constitutional body of Centre and state finance ministers governing GST rates and rules
CBDT — Apex direct-tax administration body; nodal authority for the Income Tax Act, 2025

Continuity with other governments

This dossier's most direct continuity link is to the Modi government (2014-2024) dossier: GST rate rationalisation directly addresses the multi-rate complexity criticism recorded there, and the coalition-dependency dynamic marks the clearest structural break from that government's single-party-majority operating conditions. This entry will require revision as events unfold; several of its scorecard verdicts are provisional by design and should not be read as settled judgments.

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Editorial status: draft. Government self-reported figures establish what was announced, spent, or made eligible; outcome verdicts are cross-checked against independent sources (RBI, NSS/NSO, CAG, World Bank, peer-reviewed research) before being treated as reliable. Nothing here should be treated as authoritative until status reaches "fact_checked" or higher. Last reviewed: 2026-08-11.