Indian National Congress Party supporters celebrate Tuesday as they watch live election updates at Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Initial results in show the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party ahead in 244 seats but with the Congress-led opposition gaining ground with around 100 seats. Photo by Harish Tyagi/EPA-EFE
June 4 (UPI) — Initial results in India’s general election Tuesday show the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s Bharatiya Janata Party ahead in 243 seats while an opposition Congress Party-led grouping is leading in around 98 seats.
After a massive six-week-long exercise in democratic electoral process involving 2,600 parties vying for the support of 969 million voters at a million polling stations across 28 states and nine territories and spread over seven phases, the BJP is poised to reach the 272 parliamentary seats to form a government, Election Commission results show.
Voting ended Saturday and counting is still underway with only 26 out of 543 constituencies declared, 17 of which were taken by the BJP, four by the Congress Party with the other five split among four smaller parties.
The prized third-term Modi and his BJP are seeking may already be a reality with exit polls showing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance leading in around 300 seats, although the Congress Party’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance is benefiting from an unexpected surge helping it double its tally to around 200 seats.
However, the result would be sharply down on the 353 seats the BJP-led coalition won in the 2019 election.
Modi is leading his Congress Party challenger, Ajay Rai, by almost 150,000 votes in his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state.
Statewide, the race is neck and neck with the Samajwadi Party leading the BJP 35-34 seats with 80 ballot counts partially complete and with the Congress Party down in a distant third place with 7 seats.
But the party of the Gandhi family political dynasty and currently led by Rahul Gandhi, looks set to retake the key seat of Amethi a city in the northern part of India that was long considered a bastion of the Gandhi family and the Congress party.
The party’s candidate is leading the BJP incumbent in the race for the seat, which was held by Rahul Gandhi until 2019, by 121,000 votes.
A major BJP drive to gain ground in the south of the country appears to have been unsuccessful with the party well down in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, although it was carving out a strong lead in Karnataka state and was tied with the Congress Party for 16 of the 17 seats up for grabs in Telangana state.
However, in the state’s key capital constituency, Hyderabad, the BJP was lagging in a distant third behind the Congress Party with both parties trailing frontrunner Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen party by hundreds of thousands of votes.
The Electoral Commission is expected to declare the final results later Monday.
