India election results: Modi’s party leads, opposition performs better than expected

NEW DELHI: India’s opposition bloc put up a better-than-expected fight in the parliamentary election but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party led the tally of seats, according to vote counting trends around midday.

The counting of 642 million votes polled between April 19 and June 1 in the marathon electoral exercise by the Election Commission began on Tuesday morning.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading in 233 seats, followed by the Indian National Congress in nearly 100 constituencies, the Samajwadi Party at 36, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) at 32 seats, and the trends favouring the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 21 places.

The trends were available around midday India time for all the 543 seats for which the elections were held.

A party needs at least 272 seats to secure a simple majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

The Congress, Samajwadi, and the DMK are part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which includes more than two dozen parties united to oust the BJP from power.

The INDIA bloc’s performance is much better than the exit polls by various Indian media companies and pollsters suggested.

In Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for 80 of the lower house seats, the opposition’s performance has been impressive.

Top opposition figure Rahul Gandhi was leading in Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad in Kerala, the two constituencies from where he contested.

Modi was ahead of his Congress rival, Ajay Rai, in the Varanasi constituency.

Federal minister Smriti Irani was trailing in Amethi in her fight against Kishori Lal Sharma of the Congress.

Akhilesh Yadav led in his bastion Kannauj, while his wife was leading in the Mainpuri constituency.

The BJP was ahead in all seven constituencies of the national capital Delhi, and looked set to score near-total wins in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The DMK dominated Tamil Nadu and the AITC was ahead in West Bengal.

Indian stocks plunged as the counting trends were at odds with the market expectations of a big win for Modi as predicted by most exit polls on Saturday.