India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, expected not only a third term in office but a landslide majority. He's likely to get a third term, reports the BBC, but his party's majority is looking doubftul after "shock" results in the count. Geeta Pandey and Vikas Pandey report that Modi's party needs 272 seats to form a government on its own and it doesn't look like it'll get there.
… party workers seem disheartened by what some call the BJP's lacklustre performance.
the BJP alone is unlikely to reach 272 – the number needed to form a government – making it hard to know what lies ahead.
Together with its allies, the party is leading in more than 290 seats. And that could be the issue – two of the BJP's allies – the Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam Party – are leading in close to 30 seats when taken together.
The BJP's future now depends on them, but they joined the alliance just months before the elections.
India's elections polled nearly a billion voters and took six weeks. But when it comes to counting the results, this would be two days in a row where the left, broadly speaking, has significantly outperformed pollsters' expectations.
