After much anticipation, a six-week marathon, and an elaborate seven-phase voting process, the Election Commission of India announced the results for all 543 seats yesterday. The BJP-led NDA secured 292 seats, triumphing over the opposition alliance, INDIA, which garnered 232 seats. Remarkably, the INDIA alliance, spearheaded by the Congress party and comprising various opposition parties, fell short of the 241 seats won by the BJP alone.

This marked the Prime Minister's third consecutive term. Although exit polls initially predicted a landslide victory for the BJP, the final results were much closer.

This election season marked the first time the BJD (Biju Janata Dal), led by Naveen Patnaik, was defeated by the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) after 24 years in power in Odisha. In Andhra Pradesh, the TDP (Telugu Desam Party), led by N. Chandrababu Naidu, along with the Jana Sena Party, led by Pawan Kalyan, formed an alliance with the BJP. This coalition successfully won 164 out of 175 seats in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, establishing the first NDA-led state in southern India. Chandrababu Naidu is set to attend a coalition meeting with Nitish Kumar in Delhi at 4 PM today. Mr. Naidu, who initially joined the NDA, left the alliance before the 2019 election but rejoined ahead of the current one.

The Congress, a member of the opposition INDIA bloc, increased its seat count to 99, up from 52 in 2019, thereby reducing the BJP's share in Rajasthan and Haryana. Meanwhile, two significant members of the INDIA bloc, the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress, achieved resounding victories in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, respectively. The Samajwadi Party won 37 seats, while the Trinamool Congress secured 29 seats, an improvement from its 2019 tally of 22.