Indian PM announces winner of parliamentary elections

Voting has ended in India’s mammoth election with exit polls projecting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies will win a big majority in Parliament.

Voters cast ballots on June 1 for 57 Parliamentary constituencies in the seventh phase of the polls that stretched over six weeks in the searing summer heat, according to Voice of America.

All eyes are now on June 4, when votes will be counted for all 543 elected seats in the lower house of Parliament. As India uses electronic voting machines, results are expected the same day.

The elections will test the popularity of 73-year-old Modi whose image of a strong leader and champion of Hindu nationalism has been boosted by a host of welfare measures for tens of millions of poor people during his decade in power.

The BJP campaign was dominated by the Indian leader, who crisscrossed the country to hold over 200 rallies.

Before elections got under way, the BJP was expected to cruise to an easy victory. The party had set a target of winning a supermajority by bagging 400 seats.

According to exit polls broadcast by several television channels, the party along with its allies could win 350 seats or more, far ahead of the 272 needed for a simple majority. That would hand Modi a rare, third straight term in office.

After polls closed on June 1, Modi thanked voters and expressed confidence that the "people of India have voted in record numbers" to reelect the government.

The opposition’s hopes of making gains rest on tapping into growing resentment over high unemployment that faces the country’s huge youth population and rising prices.

Only India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, secured a third straight term in office. The winning party is expected to form the next government by mid-June before the term of the present Parliament ends.