The right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party has returned, stronger than before with 303 seats in hand, final results of Indian elections confirm.
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A second straight landslide election defeat for opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised serious questions about his leadership and cast a damaging shadow over one of the world's most prominent political dynasties.
The tarnished party was predicted to get about 50 seats, barely improving the historic low 44 it won in Modi's last landslide in 2014. Congress failed to get a single seat in 13 of the country's 29 state
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A day after counting of votes for India's mammoth election began ─ and Narendra Modi's BJP appeared poised to form government for a second consecutive term ─ Indian newspapers headlined their front pages with news of the hardline party's electoral success.
The BJP has clinched 302 of 542 seats, according to the Election Commission's count at 11:45am.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks today to form a new cabinet to tackle a stuttering economy and other challenges facing his second term after winning a big majority.
Official data from the Election Commission showed Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party had won 296 of the 542 seats up for grabs and was ahead in seven more, up from the 282 it won in 2014.
The BJP would have the first back-to-back majority in the lower house of parliament for a single party since 1984. Votes will be fully counted by Friday (today) morning.
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Rahul Gandhi is set to face a backlash from within the main Indian opposition Congress party after it suffered a mauling for a second general election in a row from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.
The drubbing was so bad that Gandhi himself lost the traditional family seat in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
As vote-counting trends showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning more than 300 seats against just 49 for Congress, current and former party officials blamed a lacklustre campaign and a failure to overhaul its top team.
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With India’s ruling Hindu nationalists headed for a stunning election victory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful right hand man, Amit Shah, could reap his reward as a potential home minister, an analyst and a party official said.
“Modi and Shah work in tandem,” said a BJP official who has worked closely with the steely-eyed 54-year-old Shah.
Shah, who has long been Modi’s backroom strategist, helped run one of India’s most divisive election campaigns over the past six weeks to rouse the Bharatiya Janata Party’s nationalist base and overcome the loss of key state elections in December.
Their efforts blunted voter discontent at lack of jobs and farm distress by portraying the opposition as weak and indecisive at best and at worst, appeasing minority Muslims and arch foe Pakistan, to deftly exploit national security fears.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has responded to Prime Minister Imran Khan's congratulatory tweet, and thanked him "for your good wishes".
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to take his oath and begin his second term on Tuesday (May 28), according to Indian publication The Print.
BJP’s cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir is enjoying a healthy lead of 63,500 votes over his rivals in their East New Delhi constituency, according to Indian publication The Quint.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday congratulated India's Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP party on their landslide election victory.
Jobs, farmers, pollution, Hindu hardliners and foreign policy are the five major challenges AFP has identified for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his second term, which he is on the cusp of securing.
To read in detail what these challenges are, click here.
Actor Sunny Deol officially won from his constituency in Gurdaspur with a margin of 82,459 votes, Scroll.in reports.
"“I was confident that people of this constituency love me a lot and will ensure my victory,” he said and vowed to work for the well being of his voters.
BJP President Amit Shah emerged victorious from the Gandhinagar constituency, where he defeated Congress' C.J Chavda by a margin of more than 550,000 votes, Times of India reports.
The Indian Election Commission has announced official results of the constituencies in east and north east Delhi, Scroll.in reports. Former cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who was contesting from the East Delhi constituency on BJP's ticket, won by a margin of 391,222 votes, defeating Congress' Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Meanwhile, Manoj Tiwari, BJP's Delhi unit's president, defeated Congress' Sheila Dikshit.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to swear oath for his second term as premier on May 28, The Print reports.
Modi's party BJP is leading the vote count on a majority of seats and is all set to return to power with a historic majority and the premier has officially won in the Varanasi constituency.
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi defeated BJP's Dinesh Pratap Singh in the Raebareli constituency by 167,178 votes, Times of India reported. She received 534,918 votes, as opposed to Pratap who managed to gather 367,740 votes.
Her victory comes hours after her son Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat in his home constituency Amethi.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to extend BJP's reach to every state in the country in the upcoming five years, Scroll.in reported.
“The next five years of PM Modi’s term will be the age of BJP’s expansion,” he declared.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi retained his seat in the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, where he defeated Samajwadi Party's Shalini Yadav by more than 400,000 votes, Times of India reported.
This is a marked increase from 2014, when Modi had won the seat by a margin of 371,784 votes.
Former chief minister of Indian-occupied Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti lost to retired judge Hasnain Masoodi by almost 10,000 votes in the Anantnag constituency, Times of India reported, quoting unnamed officials.
National Conference party's Masoodi, who was contesting his maiden elections, gathered 40,180 votes while Mufti was able to receive 30,524 votes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to supporters at BJP headquarters in Delhi, insisted that he "might make mistakes, but won't ever act maliciously".
He also vowed to take his country forward and said that it was time to "look ahead and take everybody along including our rivals".
In an apparent attack on BJP's rival Congress party, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that none of the candidates in the elections were able to "fool the people [of India] by wearing the veil of secularism".
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during an address to supporters at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, said that after the party's stunning performance in the elections the "political pundits of India will have to change their 20th century mindset".
"This is the India of the 21st century," he declared.
