‘Modi alliance winning 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 blue-chip NIFTY 50 was down 5.5 per cent and the S&P BSE Sensex was down 5.3 per cent at 0800 GMT. The rupee also fell sharply against the dollar and benchmark bond yields were up.

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.

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.

"It's a fair assessment to say 400 at the moment certainly looks distant," BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli told the India Today TV channel, referring to some projections that gave 400 seats to the NDA.

"But we need to wait...to have a final picture of the seats because the exit polls speak of a massive sweep, (and) the counting trends currently don't seem to match that," he said.

"The BJP-NDA will form the government, that trend is very clear from the start," he added.

TV exit polls broadcast after voting ended on June 1 projected a big win for Modi, but exit polls have often got election outcomes wrong in India. Nearly one billion people were registered to vote, of which 642 million turned out.