Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and their allies are heading to a majority and look set to retain power.
Results published by India’s Election Commission show Mr Modi’s National Democratic Alliance leads in 295 out of 543 lower house seats but the tally fell well short of the landslide predicted.
Pre-election surveys and exit polls had projected the NDA would get between 353-401 seats.
The INDIA alliance led by the largest opposition party — Indian National Congress — performed better than expected and is leading in 225 seats.
The BJP has seen unexpected losses in the country’s most populous and politically significant state — Uttar Pradesh.
It is a hit to the BJP’s majority and seen by the opposition as a repudiation of the party’s Hindu nationalist politics.
Mr Modi will become only the second prime minister in India’s history to win a third term.
Despite votes still being counted, two key members of Narendra Modi’s alliance have endorsed him as India’s next prime minister.
Spokespersons from both the Telugu Desam Party and Janata Dal (United) parties told Reuters on Tuesday local time that their alliance with Mr Modi’s BJP would form a government.
Final results are expected on Wednesday.
Opposition MPs happy
Celebrations had already begun at the headquarters of Modi’s BJP before the full announcement of results.
But the mood at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi was also one of jubilation, according to Congress politician Rajeev Shukla.
“BJP has failed to win a big majority on its own,” he told reporters.
“It’s a moral defeat for them.”
Stocks slumped on speculation the reduced majority would hamper the BJP’s ability to push through reforms.
Narendra Modi’s opponents have struggled to counter the BJP’s well-oiled and well-funded campaign juggernaut, and have been hamstrung by what they say are politically motivated criminal cases aimed at hobbling challengers.
US think-tank Freedom House said this year that the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.
Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi and a key leader in an alliance formed to compete against India’s incumbent prime minister, returned to jail on Sunday.
Mr Kejriwal, 55, was detained in March over a long-running corruption probe, but was later released and allowed to campaign as long as he returned to custody once voting ended.
“When power becomes dictatorship, then jail becomes a responsibility,” Mr Kejriwal said before surrendering himself.
He vowed to continue “fighting” from behind bars.
Many of India’s Muslim minority are increasingly uneasy about their futures and their community’s place in the constitutionally secular country.
Mr Modi himself made several strident comments about Muslims on the campaign trail, referring to them as “infiltrators”.
The polls were staggering in their size and logistical complexity, with 642 million voters casting their ballots — ranging from megacities New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as in sparsely populated forest areas and the high-altitude Himalayas.
Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar called the counting process “robust”.
“People should know about the strength of Indian democracy,” he said Monday local time.
Based on the commission’s figure of an electorate of 968 million, turnout came to 66.3 per cent, down roughly one percentage point from 67.4 per cent in the last polls in 2019.
Analysts have partly blamed the lower turnout on a searing heatwave across northern India, with temperatures over 45 degrees Celsius.
AFP/Reuters
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