As the day draws to a close in India, we are ending our live coverage of this historic general election. Here's what you need to know:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has secured another five-year term after his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a crushing victory
• Results so far show the party is set to win about 300 of the 543 seats in parliament, exceeding expectations and building on the commanding majority it achieved in 2014
• The main opposition alliance, headed by Rahul Gandhi's Congress party, has admitted defeat. Congress is set to win fewer than 60 seats
• Mr Gandhi has also lost his Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh. He has held it since 2004 and it is considered a stronghold of Congress and the Gandhi family in particular
• The re-election of Mr Modi brings to a close the largest election the world has ever seen. More than 600 million people voted in the marathon six-week contest

Image source, Reuters

Mr Modi has now finished speaking. The key message was that this was a victory of the Indian people and that the BJP was humbled.The PM said his new government would be inclusive and that his party was committed to the constitution.

But what has his government achieved since it came into office in 2014?

BBC Reality Check has taken a look at how the BJP government has matched up to its promises over the past five years.

You can read it here

Image source, Getty Images

There are only two castes in India now, says Mr Modi. "The poor and those who want to work to bring them out of poverty," he says. "We need to empower both."

There had been speculation that the woes of India's farmers - low prices, debts and a crop glut - might have hurt the governing party in this election.

But in the wake of his crushing victory, the PM paid tribute to India's hundreds of millions of farmers.

"This success is for the farmers who sweat in order to feed their children. They are the people who are successful," he said.

"This success is for the homeless, and they will have proper houses in the coming years.

"It’s the people who have won, we dedicate this victory humbly to the citizens of this country."

"I feel so proud of where I am standing," Mr Modi, who has been re-elected for another five-year term, tells a large crowd supporters in Delhi.

"We will never stop. We will never bow down. The BJP will always work for the country," he adds.

"This election was fought not by politicians but by the people of this country – but it’s the people of this country who have emerged victorious.

"We will never give up our ideals, our humility and our culture."

Mr Modi's resounding victory is assured but results are still being declared.

Follow our live results service where you can search for any constituency.

"We will always work for the people," Mr Modi declares. He pauses and the crowd begin to cheer even more loudly.

"I want to congratulate all of the successful candidates," he adds. "We will work... for India's success, and for the coming months we will serve our country with confidence.

"I give my word to everybody."

This election was seen as a referendum on Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist whose party is accused of stoking religious divisions during its five years in power.The party says it governs for all Indians.

Read our correspondent's take on how Modi has upended Indian politics.

"India's democracy has to be accepted and determined," Mr Modi tells the jubilant crowd. "All the people who were involved in the elections - I want to pay tribute to them."

"Today... citizens have voted and they have done everything for India. This is a guarantee that India will be successful."

Earlier Congress party president Rahul Gandhi conceded the election and said he wanted to congratulate Mr Modi. He said he did not want to speak in detail about Mr Modi's fresh mandate and instead wished him luck.

The freshly-elected PM has taken to the stage as supporters chant his name.

"Everybody is here to celebrate this victory," he says. "We all want a new India. I want to bow down my head and say thank you."

Amith Shah is giving a spirited address at BJP HQ in Delhi.

He's talking up the party's vote share across the country - and contrasting its success with the poor performance of the opposition Congress party.

Well, this isn't bad timing. As we wait for Mr Modi to speak, his seat in Varanasi has been declared.

Prime Minister Modi and his lieutenant, BJP President Amit Shah, have emerged to a cheering crowd at the party's Delhi headquarters.

A reminder: The BJP has won a resounding victory that appears to have eclipsed its stunning performance in 2014. The party, on its own, is leading in 300 seats. In 2014, it won 282 seats.

Image source, Reuters

We're still waiting for Mr Modi to speak.

Image source, Reuters

We are still waiting for PM Modi to speak. So in the meantime - here's a sense of what our correspondents at BJP party HQ have been seeing in the past few hours.

The BJP celebrations have so far featured fireworks, dancing, showers of rose petals and now... horses.

As the BBC's Pratiksha Ghildial points out, horses are often used during Indian weddings and other festivities.

These guys have arrived in style.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived at BJP headquarters in Delhi, where supporters showered him and party president Amit Shah with flower petals.

He is said to address the party faithful shortly.

The 2019 general elections have cast a shadow over the relevance of the once formidable Left parties in India.

The eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Kerala were strongholds for communist and left-wing parties until a few years ago. These parties were hoping to make a comeback in this election, but they have been routed in both states.

An alliance of leftist parties led West Bengal for almost four decades and had more than 40 MPs in 2004.

But now they only rule Kerala and may end up with fewer than five MPs in parliament.

"The Left parties were on a ventilator before, but now they are officially dead," said one political analyst.

Image source, Getty Images

Priyanka Pathak
BBC religious affairs reporter

Shakeel Ahmad, a Congress party veteran, quit when he was denied a ticket, and ran as an independent candidate.

Mr Ahmad is trailing in his seat, Madhubani, in the eastern state of Bihar.

His decision was startling - it revealed the resentment among Indian Muslims who are concerned about their shrinking political representation.

India has the world's second largest Muslim population, but few Muslim MPs.

Only seven of the BJP's 437 candidates - and 32 of the Congress party's 423 candidates - are Muslim.

"Everyone wants better streets, better schools and better jobs. But they are making it all about religion, Shakeel Ahmad has done good work here, but he is not given a ticket because he is Muslim," said Mohammad Qadri, a resident of Madhubani.

"We did not hope for anything from the BJP. But we had hopes from Congress."

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

"When people trust each other and distrust their leader you get democracy, but when people distrust each other and trust the leader you get dictatorship," leading analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta told the BBC's Jugal Purohit in an exclusive interview.

He said this was perhaps the strongest government India has had since it became an independent nation in 1947. He asserted that even India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not have the kind of control Mr Modi has over his party.

As for India's main opposition Congress party, Mr Mehta said it needed a "complete overhaul" and the Gandhi family would have to "loosen its rein" on the party.

India, he added, was now in "uncharted territory".

"Expect constitutional amendments and an emboldened Hindu nationalism, which will seek fundamental changes."

He also expressed concern over the fact that there were no "external checks" on Mr Modi.

"Democracy survives on fragmentation of power. [But] we are largely at the whims of one person and what he decided to do with this extraordinary mandate."

Divya Arya, BBC World Service

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has accepted defeat, but confidence in his leadership is not yet lost.

Congress politician Mani Shankar Aiyar told me: "Congress will not question its leadership and [will] not accept Rahul Gandhi’s resignation were he to offer it."

He added that the leadership was not the reason for the party's resounding defeat. "It's the other reasons we need to work on," he said.

Mr Aiyar also alleged that India's minority groups would be "targeted" as the BJP's "efforts" to build a "Hindu nation gain steam".

"They will have to be subservient to survive and that is something opposition parties will have to be alert about and oppose," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

Prime Minister Modi and his BJP party, like US President Donald Trump, have focused on borders to shape a particular vision of India's future.

Nationalism was at the heart of the BJP campaign, and the party has pointed to a citizenship census in the north-eastern state of Assam to raise the threat of Muslim "infiltrators" and show they are curbing the tide of undocumented immigrants at India's borders.

Similarly Mr Trump has made a crackdown on immigration at the US-Mexico border a cornerstone of his presidency as well as his 2020 re-election campaign.

Millions in Assam - many of whom are Muslim - who thought they were Indian citizens were left off the list, known as the National Registry of Citizens, and are fighting to be included in a final draft due to be published in July.

The BJP has used the citizenship list to stoke anti-immigration fears and divide the country on national identity.

The party's landslide win shows that the rest of India endorses that stridently Hindu nationalist vision.

Read more about border politics in Modi's India and Trump's America.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Image source, AFP

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has scored a resounding victory again, securing a second five-year term.

The 2014 win was partly a vote in anger against the corruption-tainted Congress party.

But this time, it is an affirmation for Mr Modi. He has become the first leader since 1971 to secure a single party majority twice in a row.

"This is a victory for Modi and his vision of a new India," says political scientist Mahesh Rangarajan.

In a bitter and polarising campaign, Mr Modi effortlessly fused nationalism and development. And he escaped anti-incumbency.

Analysts expected record joblessness, plummeting farm incomes and sluggish industrial production to, at the very least, hurt his chances. But it seems Indian voters are not yet blaming Mr Modi for these woes.

Now, one of the biggest questions is if Hindu nationalism will become the default mode of Indian politics and society?

It will not happen easily because India thrives on diversity. Hinduism is a diverse faith. Social and linguistic differences hold India together. Democracy is an additional glue.

Read my full analysis here.