Modi celebrates victory in India vote, but falls short of landslide

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political alliance won India's weeks-long general election on Tuesday, but the opposition said voters had sent a clear message after his Hindu nationalist party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in a decade.

Commentators and exit polls had projected an overwhelming victory for Modi, whose campaign wooed the Hindu majority to the worry of the country's 200- million-plus Muslim community, deepening concerns over minority rights. The alliance led by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an overall parliamentary majority, results on the election commission website showed late Tuesday.

But the BJP itself was projected to secure only 240 seats of its own, well down on the 303 it won at the last polls five years ago, meaning it would need to rely on its alliance partners to pass legislation. India had given the party and its allies a mandate "for a third consecutive time", Modi told a crowd of cheering supporters in the capital New Delhi.

"Our third term will be one of big decisions and the country will write a new chapter of development. This is Modi's guarantee."

But in a remarkable turnaround largely driven by deals to field single candidates against the BJP's electoral juggernaut, the main opposition Congress party was expected to take 99 seats, almost doubling its 2019 tally of 52.

"The country has said to Narendra Modi 'We don't want you'," key leader Rahul Gandhi told reporters. "I was confident that the people of this country would give the right response."

With more than 99 percent of votes counted, the BJP's vote share at 36.6 percent was marginally lower than at the last general election. Modi was re-elected to his constituency representing the Hindu holy city of Varanasi by a margin of 152,300 votes -- compared to nearly half a million votes five years ago.

Among the independent lawmakers elected were two serving time in jail -- firebrand Sikh separatist preacher Amritpal Singh, and Sheikh Abdul Rashid from Indian-administered Kashmir, who was arrested on charges of "terror funding" and money laundering in 2019.