Modi's alliance had been forecast to win a large majority, similar to the landslide it won in 2019. But based on the tallies after around half of rounds from EVM post ballot papers had been counted, the alliance looked set to clear the threshold but without a landslide victory.
Staying way behind the magic figure of 272 on its own, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP struggled to cross 250 till 4 PM while the Congress party headed for a century.
Even as the BJP-led NDA looks comfortable at 295 to form the next government, the enthusiasm in the BJP camp has dampened. The lower than expected performance in three key states of UP, Maharashtra and West Bengal has dented BJP’s prospects to reach 272-mark on its own.
At 4 PM, BJP’s tally stood at 246 followed by Congress at 96, Samajwadi Party at 33 and TMC at 29. BJP’s allies were doing well with TDP leading on 16 seats in Andhra Pradesh, JD (U) on 14 seats in Bihar and LJP (Ram Vilas) on five seats, as per Election Commission of India (ECI) data available on its website.
Congress party’s tally on its own stood at 97 even as it touched 100-mark at one point of time, while its allies DMK, SP and RJD were ahead on 21, 33 and 4 seats respectively. In Maharashtra, the grand old party’s allies NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UT) were ahead on 7 and 10 seats respectively.
The Indian stock market reacted sharply to the results as BSE Sensex tanking about 4400 points at the close of the market and NSE Nifty down about 1380 points reversing yesterday’s massive gains.
In the two assemblies – Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the BJP was leading at 81 in 147-member Odisha while in AP the NDA ally TDP was ahead at 134 seats of 173 leads available, as per Election Commission of India (ECI) data.
In Rajasthan also the BJP is facing tough competition from Congress as the BJP is ahead only in 14 seats while the Congress is in lead in 7 seats. The BJP, however, is holding on to its stronghold in Gujarat with 25 leads out of 26 while heading for clean sweep in MP with all 29 seats.
In Telengana both BJP and Congress are neck to neck with 8 leads each while in Tamil Nadu BJP is nowhere seen as far as seats are concerned. In Karnataka BJP-JD(S) combine are ahead in 19 seats while Congress is ahead on 9 seats.
