As votes from India’s six-week long general election were counted on Tuesday, it was quickly clear that Narendra Modi was on course for his third term as prime minister. That is where his satisfaction will end.
The early results also showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party set to lose its majority for the first time since 2014 — a stunning blow to the authority of India’s strongest leader in decades and one that would leave him dependent on junior partners in his National Democratic Alliance to govern.
On Tuesday night, the NDA was ahead in 291 of 543 seats in India’s lower house of parliament, far below the more than 350 it held before the vote and the 400 that Modi had set as its target. A motley coalition of anti-BJP opposition parties, known by its acronym INDIA, was on track to nearly double its tally to 234.