For the first time since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power in 2014, it appeared unlikely that it would secure a majority on its own – but the prime minister’s coalition was still expected to be elected to a third five-year term in the world’s largest democratic exercise.

If Modi does have to rely on coalition support to govern, it would be a stunning blow for the 73-year-old, who had hoped for a landslide victory.

▶ Read more about the growth of India’s economy — and why some feel left behind.

The coalition’s first chair was former BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The coalition ruled from 1998 to 2004, but then was out of power until 2014, when Modi was first elected as the prime minister.

BJP’s key allies in the NDA include more than a dozen regional parties, including the Telugu Desam Party, Janta Dal (United), Pattali Makkal Katchi, the Republican Parry of India (Athwale Group) and Shiv Sena.

The NDA could be key to Modi retaining his position. In the past two elections, the BJP has secured an outright majority, but early figures indicate it might need the coalition to reach that threshold.

Under Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, many filmmakers have made movies on bygone Hindu kings extolling their bravery. Boisterous and action-packed movies valorizing the Indian Army have become box office successes. Political dramas and biopics that eulogize Hindu nationalists are the norm.

In most of these films, the stock villains are medieval Muslim rulers, leftist or opposition leaders, free thinkers or rights activists — and neighboring Pakistan.

▶ Read more about how some in the Hindi film industry have embraced Modi.

Hindu nationalism, once a fringe ideology in India, is now mainstream. Nobody has done more to advance this cause than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of India’s most beloved and polarizing political leaders.

And no entity has had more influence on his political philosophy and ambitions than a paramilitary, right-wing group founded nearly a century ago and known as the RSS.

▶ Read more about how Hindu nationalism has become mainstream over the past decade.

One of India’s most consequential opposition leaders, Kejriwal was arrested in March over alleged corruption charges, and let out on bail in May for a few weeks. He campaigned heavily during this time in his stronghold of New Delhi, India’s capital, as well as a few other cities before heading back to jail.

Kejriwal stormed into Indian politics in 2012 as he launched the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party, or Common People’s Party.

Since then, he has emerged as a fierce Modi rival, especially in New Delhi and Punjab state, where his party is in power.

His arrest and the ensuing saga dominated headlines, as he and his party accused Modi’s government of engineering his arrest to keep him out of the race. The government has denied this.

Kejriwal’s AAP is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, the main challenger to Modi’s BJP in this election.

Rahul Gandhi, the face of the Congress party’s campaign and would-be prime minister, said the preliminary results showed India does not want Narendra Modi.

“People’s clear message to PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is that we don’t want you to run the nation,” Gandhi said at a Congress party press conference around 10 hours into the vote count. “The poorest of this country have defended the constitution of India.”

Flanked by Congress leaders, including mother Sonia Gandhi, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty scion brandished a copy of the constitution.

Despite a stronger-than-expected showing from Congress’ INDIA alliance thus far, Modi is still expected to secure a third term as prime minister.

Modi’s coalition led in a majority of seats Tuesday in India’s general election, according to early figures, but faced a stronger challenge from the opposition than expected after it pushed back against the leader’s mixed economic record and polarizing politics. Modi was still widely expected to be elected to a third five-year term in the world’s largest democratic exercise.

Some 10 hours into counting, partial tallies reported by India’s Election Commission showed Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was ahead in 196 constituencies and had won 45, including one uncontested, of 543 parliamentary seats. The main opposition Congress party led in 83 constituencies and had won 15.

A total of 272 seats are needed for a majority. In 2019, the BJP won 303 seats, while they secured 282 in 2014 when Modi first came to power.

Modi’s party is part of the National Democratic Alliance, whose members led in 236 constituencies and won 50, according to the partial count. The Congress party is part of the INDIA alliance, which led in 211 constituencies and had won 19.

The Election Commission does not release data on the percentage of votes tallied.

India employs a first-past-the-post multiparty electoral system. That means for individual contests, whoever receives the most votes wins. To win a parliamentary majority — and thus the premiership — a party or a coalition of parties must secure at least 272 seats (543 seats are up for a vote). India’s electoral system is similar to the U.K.’s.

Although Narendra Modi is the former chief minister of Gujarat, the incumbent prime minister has retained his seat in Varanasi.

It’s the constituency from which he first ran and won in 2014. Located in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, Varanasi is a holy Hindu city. It’s about 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) east of Modi’s hometown of Vadnagar in Gujarat state.

In campaign rallies, Narendra Modi has called Muslims “infiltrators” and said they “have too many children,” referring to a Hindu nationalist trope that Muslims produce more children with the aim of outnumbering Hindus in India. He has also accused the rival Indian National Congress party of scheming to “loot” wealth from the country’s Hindus and redistribute it among Muslims, who comprise 14% of India’s more than 1.4 billion people.

Modi had kicked off his campaign with a focus on economic progress, promising he would make India a developed nation by 2047. But he and the ruling BJP doubled down heavily on their Hindu nationalism platform, with Modi employing some of his most divisive rhetoric in his decade in power.

The Congress party filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India, alleging Modi broke rules that bar candidates from engaging in any activity that aggravates religious tensions.

Analysts say the change in tone came as the BJP targeted a supermajority by consolidating votes among the majority Hindu population — a number that now seems out of reach. They say Modi’s party also ratcheted up polarizing speeches to distract voters from larger issues, like unemployment and economic distress, that the opposition has focused on.

Narendra Modi’s BJP have lost their seat in Ayodhya, a deeply symbolic loss for the party after the prime minister opened a grand but controversial Hindu temple there in January.

The BJP candidate, Lallu Singh, lost to a candidate put up by the regional Samajwadi Party, Singh’s poll agent Kamlesh Srivastava told The Associated Press. Singh had held the seat since 2014.

Modi and his party have heavily campaigned on this temple dedicated to Lord Ram, built on the historic ruins of a mosque that was destroyed by Hindu mobs in 1992.

Experts said the January opening, where Modi performed rituals inside the temple, marked the unofficial start of his campaign as they hoped it would resonate with his Hindu majority voters. Modi’s government had turned the event into a national occasion by organizing live screenings across the country and closing offices for half a day.

▶ Read more about these polling officers and see more photos of the station.

Early leads from India’s election commission projected Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was leading in 25 of 26 seats in the prime minister’s home state of Gujarat. But party leaders said they were not celebrating victory because of a recent fire at an amusement park in the state that killed 27 people.

A massive fire broke out last month at an amusement park in the state’s Rajkot city. Those killed included children.

“We had decided that there will be no celebratory victory or beating of drums. So we are not celebrating,” said C. R. Patil, a senior leader from Modi’s party.

The 53-year-old is the scion of modern India’s most powerful political dynasty. He is the great-grandson of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His grandmother and father also held the top job and were each assassinated.

He is the star face for the opposition Congress party, which governed India for nearly 55 years after the country gained independence from the British in 1947. This time, he and his Congress party are leading the main opposition alliance, called INDIA, against Narendra Modi’s BJP.

While his family connections have helped retain some loyal voters, they have also worked against him — especially in the past two elections, where he suffered huge losses against Modi, who refers to Gandhi as an out-of-touch elite, coasting on his surname.

On the campaign trail, Gandhi has called Modi a dictator ruining India’s democracy. He has attacked Modi and the BJP over recent anti-Muslim rhetoric. And his party is hoping to benefit from economic distress, including high unemployment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party appears to be falling short of a majority in the early vote count. If these trends hold, it would be a stunning setback to the populist who has never relied on coalition partners to govern.

Modi’s party is still expected to form the government and return as the prime minister for a rare third consecutive term as his National Democratic Alliance was leading in about 290 constituencies — ahead of the 272 seats needed for a majority. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party alone was leading in 242 seats.

A coalition would, however, diminish Modi’s power as a strongman leader who won his party landslide victories in 2014 and 2019 elections.

In such a scenario, his BJP would likely “be heavily dependent on the goodwill of its allies, which makes them critical players who we can expect will extract their pound of flesh, both in terms of policymaking as well as government formation,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“This would be truly, you know, uncharted territory, both for Indians as well as for the prime minister,” Vaishnav said.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi’s BJP has governed in a coalition government but has always held a majority on its own.

• Western and central India: extreme heat and longer droughts
• Coastal regions: stronger and more frequent cyclones
• Northeastern India: unpredictable and increased flooding
• Himalayas: melting glaciers and intense rain

▶ Read more about how climate change has affected the election.

A politician from disputed Kashmir who has been in New Delhi’s Tihar jail since 2019 in a terror funding case has won a Lok Sabha seat.

Sheikh Abdul Rashid won from northern Baramulla constituency as an independent candidate, beating the region’s former chief minister, Omar Abdullah. Rashid’s campaign was run by his two sons, who hoped a win would lead to his release from prison.

“I think it’s time to accept the inevitable,” Abdullah wrote on X. “I don’t believe his victory will hasten his release from prison nor will the people of North Kashmir get the representation they have a right to but the voters have spoken and in a democracy that’s all that matters.”

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, which is divided between the neighbors but claimed by both in its entirety. Modi’s government revoked Indian-controlled Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status during a 2019 security clampdown.

Rebel groups in the region have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989 and tens of thousands of people have been killed in the armed uprising and subsequent Indian military crackdown. The rebels want Kashmir to be united under Pakistani rule or become an independent country.

As the early vote count showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party faces a tighter than expected race, India’s two main benchmark stock indices closed down sharply.

The NIFTY 50 and the BSE Sensex had hit new highs at the close of day Monday but dropped sharply Tuesday as the early vote figures started to come in.

They recovered slightly to each close down more than 5%.

The country’s stock markets have boomed under Modi, whose pro-market policies have made him popular among India’s corporations and businesspeople.

Even if Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party does not secure a parliamentary majority on its own, early leads reported by India’s Election Commission showed his coalition, which includes smaller parties, still could.

Nearly 970 million people were eligible to vote in India’s general elections. For the first time, a small percentage of that figure could vote from home.

The election commission provided voters above the age of 85 or with 40% disability the option to vote from home. More than 17 million registered for that option, the election commission said.

Uttar Pradesh sends the most lawmakers of any state — 80 — to Parliament. It has long been considered the biggest prize in Indian elections. It’s also home to Ayodhya, where a Hindu temple on the site of a razed mosque opened in January.

The Samajwadi Party was leading in 35 seats, with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party ahead in 34 seats. The Congress party was leading in seven seats.

In the 2019 election, BJP won 62 seats in the state.

As India’s Muslim population has grown, legislative representation has not followed at the same pace.

In the mid-1980s, Muslims accounted for 11% of India’s population, and had 9% of seats in Parliament; today they are 14% of the population and have less than 5% of seats in Parliament.

When Modi assumed power in 2014, the outgoing Parliament had 30 Muslim lawmakers — and just one was a member of the BJP. Muslims before these general elections held 25 out of 543 seats, and none belong to the ruling party.

The political representation of Muslims at the state level is only slightly better. Muslim lawmakers hold roughly 6% of state legislature seats. None of the states has a Muslim chief minister.

India’s opposition parties have become increasingly reluctant to nominate Muslim candidates for fear of alienating Hindu voters, experts say. And while Hindus overwhelmingly rally around the BJP, Muslims have struggled to form a cohesive political agenda, in part because of how diverse the community is across sects, ethnicity, language, customs, and culture.

Some 642 million people voted in the election, with an average 66% turnout across the seven phases, according to official data. India has close to 970 million eligible voters.

Early leads reported by the Election Commission showed the opposition INDIA alliance leading in 232 constituencies. Congress party, which heads the alliance, was leading in 99 constituencies. Modi’s BJP is part of the National Democratic Alliance, whose parties led in 283 constituencies — ahead of the 272-majority mark.

The BJP was short of a majority on its own, with 238 seats. In 2019, it won 303 seats.

Political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said the Congress party’s relative success, according to preliminary figures, is largely due to a spirited campaign that focused on rising unemployment and other bread-and-butter issues.

“Congress party and other opposition parties have showed tremendous resilience. To have a stronger opposition augurs very well for India’s democracy that has taken a hit during Modi’s 10-year rule,” Kidwai said.

In a year crowded with big elections, the sprawling vote in India has stood out. The world’s most populous country boasts dozens of languages, the greatest number of WhatsApp users as well as the largest number of YouTube subscribers.

Researchers who track misinformation and hate speech in India say tech companies’ poor enforcement of their own policies created perfect conditions for harmful content with the power to distort public opinion, spur violence and leave millions of voters wondering what to believe.

Tech companies like Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, say they are working to combat deceptive or hateful content while helping voters find reliable sources. But researchers who have long tracked disinformation in India say their promises ring hollow after years of failed enforcement and “cookie-cutter” approaches that fail to account for India’s linguistic, religious, geographic and cultural diversity.

▶ Read more about election misinformation and the false claims circulated.

▶ Read more about election workers traversing the country.