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Vote counting about to start in biggest elections in the world, with one billion voters eligible to cast their ballotsExit polls show Narendra Modi expected to win historic third termVote counting in India is decentralised and done simultaneously at counting stations in each of the 543 constituencies around the country.
Counting is set to begin at 8 am (02.30 GMT) with the tallying of postal ballots that only select groups can use, including people with disabilities, or those involved in essential services including security forces and some government officials.
After paper ballots, votes from the Electronic Voting Machines are counted. India has used the machines since 2000, moving away from paper ballots for national and state elections.Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of India’s election results with me, Helen Sullivan.According to exit polls released on Saturday night, Modi and the BJP are looking at a decisive win and may even gain enough seats to win a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would allow the government to make far-reaching amendments to the constitution.Voting in the seventh and final staggered round of the six-week poll ended on Saturday, held in brutally hot conditions across swaths of the country. At least 33 polling staff died from heatstroke in Uttar Pradesh state alone on Saturday, where temperatures hit 46.9C (116.4F), election officials said.A top opponent of Narendra Modi vowed on Sunday to keep fighting “dictatorship” before he returned to jail, following elections widely expected to produce another landslide victory for the Hindu-nationalist leader. Arvind Kejriwal is among several opposition leaders under criminal investigation, with colleagues describing his arrest the month before the general elections began in April as a “political conspiracy” orchestrated by Modi’s BJP.Modi’s political opponents and international rights groups have long sounded the alarm about threats to India’s democracy. US thinktank Freedom House said this year the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.Modi’s party won the regional vote in Arunachal Pradesh, a state bordering China, while a local party swept to power in Sikkim, a Himalayan state, officials and politicians said on Sunday. Provincial elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were held on 19 April simultaneously with the first phase of the national polls.
The BJP comfortably retained power in Arunchal Pradesh by winning 46 of the 60 seats. Continue reading...