India election: Modi-led alliance seals majority

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was set to meet Wednesday to discuss forming the government, after the Hindu nationalist party won a muted victory in a surprise election verdict. 

The BJP won 240 seats on its own in the general election, losing its outright majority.

The results mean that Modi will now have to depend on regional leaders like N. Chandrababu Naidu in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and Nitish Kumar in Bihar in the east, for support, unlike in the past.

The INDIA bloc is also expected to meet in New Delhi later in the day to discuss a future course of action.

The Election Comission of India tally shows that all seats have been declared. Here's a breakdown of the won seats (not including those where parties hold a lead at present with counting incomplete) for each larger party that's part of either Prime Minister Narendra Modi's NDA coalition or of the opposition INDIA alliance.

The list excludes independents and parties with fewer than two seats.

Valid as of 0100 UTC/GMT, or 6.30 am in Delhi. 

National Democratic Alliance members

• Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP — 240
• Telugu Desam, (TDP) — 16
• Janata Dal (United), JD(U) — 12
• Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), LJPRV — 5
• Janata Dal (Secular), JD(S) — 2

Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) members

• Congress — 99
• Samajwadi Party — 37
• All India Trinamool Congress — 29 
• Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) — 22
• Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) — 9
• Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) — 8
• Yuvajana Sramika Ryuthu Congress Party — 4
• Communist Party of India (Marxist) — 4

Official results showed late on Tuesday that the NDA alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had secured a parliamentary majority. 

With a few constituencies still left to declare, the BJP and its allies had secured a combined 272 seats — the magic number for a majority in the 543-seat parliament. 

The BJP itself had secured 224 seats and was leading in 16 more constituencies. That makes it by far the largest party still, but no longer commanding a majority in its own right as it did after the votes in 2014 and 2019. 

Projections suggested the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would ultimately claim 293 seats.

The main opposition Congress party stood at 88 won seats with a lead in another 11 constituencies, and was set to almost double its number of seats after a disastrous 2019 showing.

The broader Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) appeared on course for 233 seats in total. 

While Modi will be the first Indian leader since Jawaharlal Nehru to win a third consecutive term, he will face by far the strongest opposition of his premiership in that third term. 

One of the internationally-known winners in Tuesday's vote counting in India is a political novice running for office for the first time. 

Yusuf Pathun won his seat in the Baharampur constituency in West Bengal, running for the All India Trinamool Congress party, which is particularly strong in that state. 

He was a surprise nomination by the state's chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. Pathun had to defeat the incumbent Ranjan Chowdhury from the Congress party — an ally within the broad INDIA opposition coalition — and the BJP's Nirmal Chandra Saha to claim the seat. 

Pathun, 41, is a retired professional cricketer, and was part of the India squads that won the 2007 World T20 trophy and the 2011 ODI cricket World Cup. 

Cricket is immensely popular in India and several prominent players have dabbled in politics. Most notably in recent years, former India captain Sachin Tendulkar took a seat in parliament in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, in 2012 shortly before announcing his retirment from the sport. 

Tendulkar's period in parliament was not an entirely happy one, with his low attendance rate and lack of participation in debates frequently criticized. He left in 2018 after one term. 

Other Indian cricketers to try their hands in politics in recent years include Mohammad Azharuddin (Congress), Gautam Gambhir (BJP) and Navjoy Singh Sidhu (first BJP, then Congress). 

The leader of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, told journalists that the partial results and swing towards his opposition INDIA alliance should sent a clear message to Prime Minister Modi and his BJP. 

"The country has unanimously and clearly stated, we do not want Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [India's Home Minister and Modi's powerful second-in-command] to be involved in the running of this country, we do not like the way they have run this country," Gandhi said. "That is a huge message." 

When asked whether Congress, which was on course to almost double its seat tally from 2019, would look to form a government, he said he would hold talks with allies on Wednesday to consider the future course of action. 

As projections currently stand it looks difficult or potentially even impossible for the opposition coalition to form a government, even though their position in parliament is likely to be far stronger in the next legislative term.

Modi's BJP is still on course to be the largest party, and to hold more than twice as many seats as Congress.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory following weekslong voting for the Indian Lok Sabha (parliament).

"People have placed their faith in [National Democratic Alliance (NDA)], for a third consecutive time! This is a historical feat in India's history," Modi wrote on social media platform X, referring to the alliance led by his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While the official result has not yet been declared, Modi looked to be on course to secure a third term as prime minister, a feat only achieved once before in India's history, and namely by the country's first leader after independence, Jawaharlal Nehru.

However, Modi's victory is a far cry from the landslide victory seen in the 2019 election or even in comparison to the major victory predicted by exit polls.

The Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has conceded defeat in the constituency of Faizabad, home to the controversial Hindu Ram Temple.

The temple was inaugurated in January, fulfilling a key Bharatiya Janata Party pledge that had also been seen as a means of cementing Modi's legacy. It was built on the site of a 16th-century Muslim mosque that was destroyed in riots in 1992.

The construction of the temple had sparked controversy, but the BJP pushed its inauguration during its campaign rallies, betting on it as an election winner among its Hindu-nationalist support base.

The loss in Faizabad, however, suggests this bid may not have paid off. The BJP candidate who won in both 2014 and 2019, Lallu Singh, was ousted by the candidate for the socialist Samajwadi Party, Awadesh Prasad, who had a 50,000 lead over his rivals.

"I could not protect your and Ayodhya's dignity, there must have been some shortcoming in me," Singh told the Indian Express daily newspaper.

The leader of the main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, has won a seat in his constituency of Wayanad in the state of Kerala.

With a margin of more than 364,000 votes, Gandhi was able to keep hold of the seat that got him into the Lok Sabha (India's parliament) in 2019.

However, Gandhi is also running in a second seat — Rae Bareli in the state of Uttar Pradesh where he leads with a margin of around 390,000 votes against his rivals.

Standing in two constituencies is legal under Indian law, however, if he does win both seats, then he must choose which one he will keep and the other will go to a by-election.

Gandhi's Congress party was once dominant in Indian politics, having led the country for decades after independence from the British Empire.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won his constituency vote in Varanasi, according to the official vote tally.

More than 610,000 people cast their votes for Modi, giving him a margin of victory of over 150,000 compared to his closest rival.

Varanasi is a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state and part of what is known as the Hindi heartland.

The state, which sends 80 lawmakers to parliament, has been a BJP stronghold, but the party looks set to suffer big losses there and is on course to win only around half of the seats.

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DW reporter Nimisha Jaiswal says the BJP came into the election with a lot of confidence, but "the tide seems to have turned during the course of voting."

Jaiswal suggested that the BJP picked up on a turn against them and that a shift towards more regional parties appeared to be benefiting the main opposition Congress party rather than the BJP.

The support for regional parties "may reflect that the fact that voters may be tired of the BJP to a certain extent," she said.

At the same time, voters "may not have gained full confidence back in the Congress," which once ruled India for decades but lost massively in the last two elections.

"Both the BJP and the Congress pulling these regional parties into their coalition is a smart move," Jaiswal said. "There are big gains for a southern regional party that the BJP will benefit from, but most of these benefits do seem to be accruing to the opposition."

This could result in the opposition preventing the BJP from "steamrolling policies through" as they were able to do previously, she added.

Regarding the major state of Uttar Pradesh, considered a "stronghold" for the BJP for the last 10 years, Modi's gamble on constructing the controversial Ram Temple appears not to have paid off, according to Jaiswal.

"The Uttar Pradesh populace seems very often to vote along religious lines, but it seems that the appeal the BJP was making through the construction of the Ram Temple does not seem to have pulled through as much — the city in which that temple was made, the BJP seems to be losing."

The BJP's anti-minority rhetoric used on the campaign trail also "seems to have backfired," Jaiswal said.

The early trends from India's election vote tally have shown us that "the Indian vote remains pretty unpredictable," DW's bureau chief in Delhi Sandra Petersmann said.

"The exit polls were also seemingly far off the mark because they all had projected a thumping majority for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP," she added. "And that doesn't seem very likely at the moment."

Modi's alliance had been forecast to win a large majority, similar to the landslide it won in 2019. But based on the tallies after around half of the ballots had been counted, the alliance looked set to clear the threshold but without a landslide victory.

"If we look at the margin for a two-thirds majority — that would be around 359 seats, which would enable any alliance or party to change India's constitution — they're far from that as of now," Petersmann said.

The BJP will also now be more reliant on its alliance partners if the tally continues on its trajectory.

"If we look back at 2019, the BJP alone had won 303 seats. Right now the BJP alone is at 240 seats, so they have lost as a party individually," Petersmann explained.

"If we look at a state like Uttar Pradesh, with a population bigger than Brazil, it sends 80 members of parliament to the national parliament here in Delhi. In 2019, the BJP managed to win 62 of those seats, now it seems that they have lost about half of them — that is huge because Uttar Pradesh is in the northern Hindi heartland."

DW correspondent Shalu Yadav says the mood at the headquarters of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi was a "reflection of the disappointing numbers" that have been coming in from vote counting centers.

Early trends show the BJP is falling short of a majority in the 543-member parliament.

When the party swept to power in 2014, it did so with a majority of its own. It repeated that success in the 2019 elections.  

"The PM had made a claim of crossing 400 seats out of 543 this time during his election rallies, and as of now they are nowhere near as close," Yadav said.

She said talking to people on the ground over the past two months had made it clear unemployment, especially amongst the youth, was an important issue for voters, as well as inflation. 

"Even as India is one of the world's fastest, major growing economies, here people say that hasn't really reflected onto their lives," Yadav said, adding that food and fuel costs have been rising. 

"Unemployment remains a burning issue amongst the youth, as well as rural distress — farmers have been a major voting bloc and they have been quite disappointed with this government because they haven't been able to meet the promise of doubling incomes during their tenure."  

As vote counting continues, early results show Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP-led alliance is unlikely to win by the landslide predicted by exit polls.

DW correspondent Adil Bhat said that had led to a mood of ''jubilation, excitement and anticipation" at the headquarters of Rahul Gandhi's opposition Congress party in the capital, New Delhi.  

"Congress and its alliance partners, they don't have a majority right now, they are not even close. But for them it's a victory because they are able to stop BJP from getting a thumping majority," he said.

"Congress workers here are telling us that it's already a victory for them. It's a rejection of Prime Minister Modi's divisive politics and it's a win of Rahul Gandhi's catchphrase: save democracy and save the constitution ... They are saying that this kind of win will give them a morale boost, it will help them to make preparations better for the coming elections." 

Counting is well underway in India where around 642 million ballots need to be tallied.

This represents a turnout of 66.3%, with a total electorate of 968 million people — the largest in the world.

While this share was down slightly from the last election in 2019 when it reached 67.34%, election chief Rajiv Kumar on Monday called the turnout a "world record." In overall voter numbers, this could well prove the case, as the Indian population and electorate is getting larger.

Some analysts have chalked up the lower turnout to the blistering temperatures that pummeled parts of the country during the drawn-out election, with the mercury reaching over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of northern India.