India election results 2019: BJP storms to power with unprecedented show in decades, Congress accepts defeat

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be sworn-in for the second term on May 30

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BJP President Amit Shah, left, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, right, present a giant floral garland to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
BJP President Amit Shah, left, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, right, present a giant floral garland to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
AP

Highlights

  • 67.11 per cent of the 909.9 million eligible Indian voters had cast their votes
  • Seven-phase elections
  • Over 8,000 candidates were in the fray for 542 seats
  • BJP has consolidated its lead over rivals and will return to power

Election in the world’s largest democracy has concluded where 67.11 per cent of the 909.9 million eligible voters in India had cast their votes to reelect BJP and Narendra Modi for yet another term of five years. Here’s our coverage of how the events unfolded on the last two days of the poll process, as it happened:

BJP wins 303 seats

05:31 PM May 24, 2019

Final party position

Modi's swearing-in ceremony likely on May 30

03:43 PM May 24, 2019

Result in 541 seats officially released

03:25 PM May 24, 2019

Gandhi-Nehru brand tainted by new election humiliation

12:43 PM May 24, 2019

Terror accused wins parliament seat

11:48 AM May 24, 2019

Voters say 'no' to criminals in UP

10:16 AM May 24, 2019

Two high-profile BJP leaders bite dust in Odisha

09:16 AM May 24, 2019

BJP's rise sounds alarm for TRS in Telangana

08:27 AM May 24, 2019

BJP wins 1 LS seat, 3 Assembly bypolls in Goa

12:09 AM May 24, 2019

BJP wins all five seats in Uttarakhand

11:28 AM May 23, 2019

BJP wins five seats in Delhi; leading at two

11:12 PM May 23, 2019

Modi wins Varanasi

11:03 PM May 23, 2019

Seven former Congress CMs lose polls, two trailing

10:58 PM May 23, 2019

Gambhir wins East Delhi by 3,91,222 votes

10:29 PM May 23, 2019

Bengal's BJP chief Dilip Ghosh wins Medinipur LS seat

10:23 PM May 23, 2019

S.S. Ahluwalia wins Bengal's Burdwan-Durgapur seat

10:11 PM May 23, 2019

Rahul wins Wayanad with record margin

10:01 PM May 23, 2019

Manoj Tiwari wins Delhi North East seat

09:20 PM May 23, 2019

BJP wins 22, leads in 3 of Karnataka's 28 LS seats

09:02 PM May 23, 2019

Babul Supriyo defeats Moon Moon Sen to retain Asansol

08:55 PM May 23, 2019

MNF wins Mizoram's lone LS seat

08:53 PM May 23, 2019

AAP set to lose on all seven seats in Delhi

08:15 PM May 23, 2019

Will not work with bad intentions: Modi

08:06 PM May 23, 2019

J-K BJP, NC set to win 3 seats each; Mufti suffers humiliating loss

08:00 PM May 23, 2019

Chandrababu Naidu resigns as Andhra Pradesh CM

06:45 PM May 23, 2019

Mohamad Bin Zayed congratulates Modi

06:34 PM May 23, 2019

Rupee pares gains, settles 36 paise down at 70.02 vs USD

06:22 PM May 23, 2019

Modi promises inclusive India after stunning election win

05:13 PM May 23, 2019

PM remove 'chowkidar' prefix

05:02 PM May 23, 2019

Rahul Gandhi concedes defeat in Amethi

04:37 PM May 23, 2019

Calling Modi thief was wrong: Nitin Gadkari

03:50 PM May 23, 2019

Farooq Abdullah wins

03:15 PM May 23, 2019

Indian stocks hit record highs on Modi polls lead

01:23 PM May 23, 2019

Modi's BJP claims victory

01:30 PM May 23, 2019

Rahul Gandhi's lead crosses 200,000 mark

01:16 PM May 23, 2019

BJP leader seeks Kumaraswamy's resignation in Karnataka

01:09 PM May 23, 2019

Modi to reach BJP headquarters in evening

12:01 PM May 23, 2019

Gujarat: Amit Shah set to win, BJP ahead on all 26 seats

12:00 PM May 23, 2019

Karnataka: BJP heads for landslide win, Congress, JD-S face rout

11:59 AM May 23, 2019

Congress-led UDF leading in 19 seats in Kerala

11:09 AM May 23, 2019

BJP on course to victory

10:47 AM May 23, 2019

BJP leading in 336 seats

10:27 AM May 23, 2019

BJP leads in 328 seats

10:06 AM May 23, 2019

BJP is leading in 288

09:48 AM May 23, 2019

Telangana: TRS lead in 11, BJP in 3

09:41 AM May 23, 2019

BJP leading

09:09 AM May 23, 2019

BJP leading in Karnataka

08:58 AM May 23, 2019

Congress leading in Kerala

08:50 AM May 23, 2019

DMK leads in Tamil Nadu's 20 Lok Sabha seats

08:46 AM May 23, 2019

Trinamool Congress party leading

08:34 AM May 23, 2019

Akhilesh Yadav leads in Azamgarh

08:18 AM May 23, 2019

BJP leading

08:00 AM May 23, 2019

Narendra Modi leading

07:51 AM May 23, 2019

Rahul Gandhi leading

07:45 AM May 23, 2019

Smriti Irani leads

07:31 AM May 23, 2019

Counting of votes begins in Tamil Nadu

07:27 AM May 23, 2019

Counting of 1.37 crore ballots for 13 Punjab seats begin

07:14 AM May 23, 2019

Counting begins for 42 LS seats in West Bengal

07:02 AM May 23, 2019

Counting for 2 LS seats, 4 bypolls begin in Goa

06:43 AM May 23, 2019

Vote count starts in Mumbai, Maharashtra

06:46 AM May 23, 2019

Counting of ballots for 10 Haryana seats begin

06:45 AM May 23, 2019

Counting of votes begins

06:30 AM May 23, 2019

The counting process

As per procedure, postal ballots will be the first to be counted. Service voters stood at 18 lakh. These include personnel of the armed forces, central police force personnel and state police personnel who are posted outside their constituencies. Diplomats and support staff posted in Indian embassies abroad are also counted as service voters. The exercise of counting postal ballots manually will itself take a couple of hours at least, an election commission official said. The paper trail machines slips will be counted in the end. As per the procedure, first the slips will be counted and the EVM displays would be switched on later to match the results. In case of a mismatch, the results based in paper slip count will be considered as final. The entire exercise of EVM-Paper trail machine matching will take an additional four to five hours. Out of the 543 Lok Sabha seats, elections were held in 542 constituencies as the EC had cancelled polls to the Vellore constituency on the grounds of excessive use of money power. The poll panel is yet to announce a fresh date for elections in Vellore. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several union ministers, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav are among key leaders who contested the polls. This is for the first time in a Lok Sabha (parliament) election that results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines (VVPAT).

What is VVPAT?

Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines are used during election process to verify that the vote polled by a voter goes to the correct candidate. VVPATs are a second line of verification and are particularly useful in the time when allegations around Electronic Voting Machines' tampering crop up.

How does VVPAT work?

After a voter presses the button on the EVM against the chosen candidate, the VVPAT prints a slip containing name of the candidate and the election symbol and drops it automatically into a sealed box. The machines give the chance for the voter to verify their vote. The machine is placed in a glass case in a way that only the voter can see it. The slip is displayed to the voter for seven seconds after which the VVPAT machine cuts it and drops in into the storage box with a beep. The machines can be accessed, though, by the polling officials and not by the voter. The Election Commission of India has not conceded to any allegation that the EVMs used for polling can be tampered with. However, VVPATs have been used in some elections in a bid to counter all allegation of tampering.

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