India’s Prime Minister’s Party Leads Election, But Without the Sweeping Victory Polls Projected

This Tuesday, the Election Commission of India began counting votes in the general elections for the 543-seat Lower House of Parliament (Lok Sabha), in which nearly 650 million people have participated in over six weeks.

During the counting, India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is leading in fewer than 250 constituencies out of 543 parliamentary seats, with 272 seats representing a simple majority with about half the votes counted. Total The Modi-led National Democratic Alliance, NDA, is leading with nearly 300 seats. The main opposition party was leading in more than 220 constituencies.

Although Modi’s alliance is leading in the vote, the numbers are lower than the landslide victory predicted in the exit polls cited Reuters. Narendra Modi, party leader Bharatiya Janata, may have to rely on allies to form a government, which has not yet happened. In 2014 and 2019, the Indian Prime Minister received a majority of votes.

Narendra Modi said Saturday he was confident of winning a third term, although most polls in the world’s biggest election event pointed to a new victory for the Hindu nationalist leader.

“I can confidently say that the people of India voted in record numbers to re-elect the National Democratic Alliance government,” Narendra Modi said on social media platform X.

According to the Election Commission of India, counting began at 08:00 (03:30 in Lisbon) with postal ballots and then continued with voting on electronic machines at counting centers located in the half-thousand contested constituencies.

This is the only stage of the electoral process that must take place simultaneously in this country of nearly a billion voters, requiring seven stages of voting.

Official results should be known in the next few hours.