Early India vote count shows Modi alliance in majority but short of landslide

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alliance was winning a majority of seats in early vote counting trends in the general election on Tuesday, but well short of the landslide predicted in exit polls, TV channels showed.

The trends spooked financial markets which had expected a hefty win for Modi, with stocks falling steeply.

The rupee also fell sharply against the dollar and benchmark bond yields were up, Reuters reported.

The markets had soared on Monday after exit polls on June 1 projected Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would register a big victory, and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was seen getting a two-thirds majority and more.

At 0800 GMT, TV channels showed the NDA was ahead in nearly 300 of the 543 elective seats in parliament, where 272 is a simple majority. The opposition INDIA alliance led by Rahul Gandhi’s centrist Congress party was leading in over 220 seats, higher than expected.

TV channels showed BJP accounted for nearly 240 of the seats in which the NDA was leading, short of a majority on its own, compared to the 303 it won in 2019, Reuters reported.

A third Modi term with a slim majority for BJP – or having to depend on NDA allies for a majority – could introduce some uncertainty into governance as Modi has ruled with an authoritative hold over the government in the last decade.

However, politicians and analysts said it was too early to get a firm idea of the voting trends since a majority of ballots were yet to be counted.

However, if Modi’s victory is confirmed even by a slim margin, his BJP will have triumphed in a vitriolic campaign in which parties accused each other of religious bias and of posing a threat to sections of the population.