India's Election Is Turning Out Far Closer Than Expected, With Modi Unlikely To Win By A Landslide

Narendra Modi at the release of the Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto at the party headquarters in New Delhi in April.

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• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is projected to win a third term as the country's leader.
• But the multiparty alliance led by his Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to win a smaller majority.
• It's the result of a six-week election that saw a bitter feud emerge between the BJP and its rivals.

Narendra Modi is on track to secure a historic third term as India's prime minister, but with a narrower victory than had been expected.

A coalition led by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to win about 300 seats in the Indian parliament, which is lower than the 400 seats it was expected to win in some exit polls, as Reuters reported early Tuesday.

The report said the opposition INDIA alliance, led by the centrist Congress Party, was expected to make gains and projected to win around 220 seats. In the Indian parliament, a party or coalition that wins 272 seats can form the government.

The final votes were cast on Saturday in the seventh phase of the election, which saw people in eight of India's 36 states and territories take their turns at the ballot.

Modi had expected a landslide

Modi and the BJP had long been projected to win decisively. Exit polls, though sometimes inconsistent, showed the party extending its control of the lower house.

Modi had set a goal for his BJP-led alliance to secure 400 seats, up from about 350 won in 2019.

NIHARIKA KULKARNI/Getty Images

The incumbent was so assured of being reelected this year that he declared victory on social media three days before the official results were scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.

"I can say with confidence that the people of India have voted in record numbers to reelect the NDA government," he wrote on X.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Indian officials struck a similarly confident note.

Hardeep Singh Puri, India's minister for oil and gas, told Business Insider that Modi would likely get "15 to 20%" more seats than in 2019.

"I think we were 303 last time," he said. "So it should be 343-45 but it's a process that is still beginning."

"The opposition is in disarray, he added.

India's rapid growth has attracted the attention of corporate leaders such as Elon Musk, Jamie Dimon, and Tim Cook.

"I think most investors have read the tea leaves and have realized that some of the political stability and predictable policies that they expect…when it comes to making investment decisions, is likely to be available in India," said Rajesh Kumar Singh, a top official in India told Business Insider in Davos in January this year.

On Tuesday, Indian stocks had their worst day in more than four years as stability looked less likely. This was a day after the stocks hit record highs following a poll showing Modi's landslide victory.

A bitter battle for power

The weekslong election involved a bitter feud between the BJP and its main opposition, the Congress Party.

The Congress Party has formed its own bloc with about 20 opposition groups to oust Modi, campaigning on promises to relieve the nation's unemployment woes. But the new alliance is undermined by differences in ideologies and contested leadership.

Modi, a polarizing but popular leader, has spent much of the election blasting the Congress and its promised policies in controversial attacks. At one point, he accused the opposition of planning to take India's wealth and redistribute it to the Muslim minority.

REUTERS/Priyanshu Singh

While not specifically criticizing Muslims in his rally speeches, he's used terms such as "infiltrators" that are widely believed to allude to the minority.

His party's ideology, Hindutva, promotes building a Hindu nation and has been criticized as a nationalist movement that foments hate speech and right-wing extremism.

BJP's rivals have also accused the party of attempting to stifle opposition leaders. Delhi's chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party, was recently arrested on corruption charges related to handing out liquor licenses. Kejriwal was granted bail until the end of the election.

India's voting population is the world's largest, with 969 million people eligible to cast their ballots. That's more than twice the entire population of the European Union.