The official tally of the parliamentary vote has been released by the Election Commission of India for 542 of the total 543 seats Up for grabs; the BJP wins a clear majority, clinching 240 of them. The new government would have a completely different composition, with the Indian National Congress (Congress) party winning 99 seats.
The BJP, whose candidates were in the electoral fray in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, managed to secure only 240 seats, which was a major decline compared to previous performances. The party had secured 303 seats in 2019 and 282 seats in the previous parliamentary elections in 2014.
It now has 282 seats short of the majority mark of 272 that is needed, and the BJP alone will have to seek the help of its allies in the NDA to form the government.
The TDP of Andhra Pradesh and Janata Dal-United of Bihar, with whom the NDA has allied, secured 16 and 12 seats, which provided the coalition with the necessary majority.
As part of the opposition INDIA bloc, the incumbent Congress party increased its tally in 2019 by obtaining 99 seats. Mayawati’s BSP, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, Akhilesh Yadav’s SP, and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC also fared rather well, and hence, there was no impact here of a near sweep that the led NDA was expecting.
While over 640 million votes were polled in seven phases from April 19 to June 1, the election witnessed complicated fights in several dozen constituencies.
