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India election results: Big wins, losses and surprises
A tight Varanasi race and BJP’s Maharashtra downfall – here’s how India’s 2024 Lok Sabha polls defied expectations.By Sarah Shamim
Published On 4 Jun 20244 Jun 2024
With most of India’s 640 million votes counted following the country’s six-week long election, the world’s – and history’s – largest democratic exercise appears to have thrown up some big surprises.
The governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi fell short of the 272-seat mark that signifies a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament, which has 543 seats in all. With its allies, the BJP has still secured a majority. The opposition INDIA alliance, led by the Indian National Congress party, has won 222 seats.
These numbers contrast sharply with 2019 results when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats, 303 of which were bagged by the BJP alone.