A spokesman for the opposition Congress party, Jaiveer Shergill, has told the BBC that the results have come as a shock.

"We didn't expect this defeat," he said. "[We] weren't good communicators about our electoral promises."

The main opposition alliance, which is headed by the Congress party, is yet to formally concede.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Image source, EPA

Narendra Modi made this an election all about himself.

He should have faced some anti-incumbency. Joblessness has risen to a record high, farm incomes have plummeted and industrial production has slumped. Many Indians were hit hard by the currency ban (also known as demonetisation) and businessmen complained about a shabby and a complicated of an uniform sales tax.

The results prove that people are not yet blaming Mr Modi for this.

A combination of nationalist rhetoric, subtle religious polarisation and a slew of welfare programmes helped Mr Modi to coast to a second successive win. He also mined national security as a vote-getter in a manner never seen in a general election in recent history.

"It is all right if there's little development, but Modi is keeping the nation secure and keeping India's head high," a voter in the eastern city of Kolkata told me.

Mr Modi is a strongman, and people possibly love him for that.

It is now clear that Narendra Modi has won a resounding victory and will lead India for five more years.The National Democratc Alliance led by his Bharatiya Janata Party is leading in 345 seats.

A party or coalition needs at least 272 seats to secure a majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha.There had been doubts that Mr Modi could follow up his thumping victory in 2014 with another huge majority - but he has done it.

Image source, EPA

Aamir Peerzad
BBC World Service

There are concerns in Indian-administered Kashmir that a second term will encourage the BharatIya Janata Party (BJP) to adopt a more aggressive stand in the valley, one of the country's most volatile regions.

A college student, who did not wish to be named, told me, “Kashmir needs a political solution, not a military solution. The BJP has been using Kashmir to gain votes in the rest of country but do they ever see what is happening within the valley?"

Image source, Getty Images

Militancy has been on the rise here in recent years - 2016 saw the deaths of 150 suspected militants and more than 230 died in 2018, according to official figures.

“India is not ready to have a dialogue, which is pushing Kashmiri youth to the wall, that’s why we have so many youngsters joining militant ranks,” said separatist leader Umar Farooq.

The BJP is leading in three of the state's six Lok Sabha seats - the regional opposition, National Conference is leading in the other three.

The votes are still being counted - under heavy security.

The BJP is set to win all 25 seats in the northern state of Rajasthan, just the way it did in 2014.

The state is known for palaces, royal families and also for giving clear mandates in elections.

Rajasthan has set an interesting trend in the past 20 years – the party that wins assembly elections here goes on to get most of the state’s 25 parliamentary seats.

The Congress had reasons to believe that it would do well in the general elections because it defeated the BJP in assembly elections just six months ago. But that did not happen.

Rajasthan-based senior journalist Avinash Kalla says the state’s tendency to give clear mandate is what drove both parties to campaign hard.

He adds that the "Modi wave" remained intact in the state.

"The lead affirms the reality that it was chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia who lost the state elections five months back," he said.

Vineet Khare
BBC World Service reporter, Bihar

Former student leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s mother, Meena Devi, had been busy since early morning.

She had been getting the dough ready to cook poori sabzi (an Indian dish of flatbread and potato curry) which is cooked on special celebratory days. She was anticipating her son’s victory in Begusarai, in the eastern state of Bihar.

Chairs had been laid out for expected visitors and a television set tuned to a Hindi channel that was running live results.

But the mood soon changed as his rival, the BJP’s Giriraj Singh, took a lead of more than 200,000 votes, surprising many of Kanhaiya’s supporters.

Begusarai was called a "hot seat" as Kanhaiya, referred to as the poster boy of ‘anti-Modi politics’ - had been visited by many celebrities who campaigned for him.

If not a win, there was perhaps an expectation of a tough fight. "No one could gauge what the voters had on their minds," said one.

It's said that whoever wins the huge northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, or UP, will win the election.The state was key to Mr Modi and his BJP party's 2014 election victory.

This time two powerful, caste-based regional parties put aside bitter differences to try and stop the BJP juggernaut. But it appears they have failed.

Divya Arya, BBC World Service

The Aam Aadmi Party’s performance is a far cry from their ambitious election pitch. It had fought the election promising to build on its work in the education and health sectors.

They are trailing in all of capital Delhi's seven Lok Sabha seats - and the BJP is leading in every one of them.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ran a spirited campaign against Mr Modi - but his party and the Congress party were not able to forge an alliance. Many say this helped the BJP consolidate votes.

Image source, Getty Images

The party's head office has been deserted for most of the morning, with no supporters or leaders in sight.

Sourabh Bharadwaj, a minister in the Delhi government, appeared briefly to congratulate the BJP on its impending victory.

But he refused to comment on what had gone wrong for his party.

India's Election Commission (EC) is charged with upholding the guidelines governing the world's largest democratic exercise.

But in this election it has come under fire for being nothing more than a "toothless tiger".

Most recently, Rahul Gandhi, the president of India's main opposition Congress party, sent out this angry tweet:

Their guidelines, known as the model code of conduct, external, set out rules for the "general conduct" of candidates, and also for whichever party is running the government.

But this year, the limits of all these guidelines have been severely tested, mostly by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), writes BBC Hindi's Vineet Khare.

All of this exposed loopholes in the guidelines and triggered a furious response from opponents and observers, all of whom complained to the EC.

But the problem, experts say, is that the model code isn't a law, so it doesn't include punishments, is voluntary for all parties, and only remains in place until polls are completed.

Imran Qureshi
BBC World Service, Bangalore, India

The BJP is set to retain Karnataka - its only stronghold in southern India. It won 17 out the state's 28 seats in 2014.

The party is set to add seven more seats to its tally in 2019, riding on what is now being described as the "Modi wave".

"He is the son of India and that's why he is an honest chowkidar," this is a line from one of the songs being played in the BJP's headquarters in Bangalore.

Crackers are being set off and the entire building is reverberating with chants of "Modi, Modi".

The party was hoping to win 18 seats, but the trends have surpassed the expectations of even BJP leaders.

The party's victory will have an impact on the coalition state government run by the Congress and the regional Janata Dal (Secular).

In the state elections, the BJP won 104 seats - 18 short of an outright majority. But the Congress won 87 and the JDS 37 and the two then allied to form a government.

The BJP now hopes that its strong showing in parliamentary elections will encourage legislators from the other parties to help it form a government.

"We don't need to lure any legislator from their side. They will come on their own," R Ashok, BJP leader and a former deputy chief minister, told the BBC.

The prime minister broke his silence on Twitter as the BJP continued to show a commanding lead.

Deepthi Bathini, BBC Telugu

There's a huge crowd gathering at the home of Jagan Mohan Reddy in Tadepalle in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. And party workers are gearing up with firecrackers to celebrate.

The 46-year-old chief of the YSR Party appears to have swept the polls here. Not only is his party winning 24 of the state's 25 Lok Sabha seats, it is also winning 139 of the state's 175 assembly seats, according to trends.

Andhra Pradesh voted on 11 April in both parliamentary and state polls.

Mr Reddy's emphatic win is all the more stark in light of Congress' loss under the leadership of the Gandhi dynasty.

Mr Reddy, whose father was a chief minister and a veteran Congress politician, left the party because he said they had humiliated him after his father died.

He floated his own party but fared poorly in the last election. Now, he's all set to become the chief minister and a crucial ally for the BJP at the centre.

Many of the party workers told me they have been waiting for this day - a vindication of Mr Reddy's popularity, according to them - for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, there is a gloomy silence outside the home of current Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in Vijayawada.

It's deserted. And the drums and other musical instruments that were intended for celebration lie unused - they haven't even been uncovered.

Mr Naidu has lost every one of the state's 25 Lok Sabha seats, according to trends. His Telugu Desam Party won 15 of them in 2014.

Image source, Getty Images

Results and trends are now flowing in as votes continue to be counted

This is because the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are counted in batches, and results released in phases. The media report the results in real time as they emerge.

You can follow those trends here on the BBC.

Akhilesh Yadav is headed for a win in Azamgarh in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. And the same seems to be true for his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav in Mainpuri.

Both seats have long been a stronghold of regional parties like the Yadavs' Samajwadi Party.

In 2014, Azamgarh was won by the senior Yadav.

Image source, Getty Images

The Yadavs are at the heart of the grand alliance of regional parties that pitted itself against PM Modi and the BJP.

It saw an alliance of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh, who had effectively been sworn enemies for the past two decades.

Ms Mayawati and the junior Yadav have addressed a number of joint rallies in the state, including a massive gathering in Azamgarh where she appealed to her supporters to vote for Mr Yadav.

“When you vote for him, you are actually voting for me,” she told them.

But the alliance didn't truly hurt the BJP's chances - the party and its allies are leading in at least 58 seats in UP. It won 71 of the state's 80 seats last time.

The alliance, meanwhile , is leading in 21 seats.

Geeta Pandey
Editor, women and social affairs India

All roads in the city of Lucknow lead to the BJP headquarters, where scores of jubilant supporters began congregating once the voting trends started becoming clear.

Many waved party flags, some held up cut-outs of PM Modi and some came wearing NaMo (short for Narendra Modi) T-shirts. They have been chanting “Modi, Modi”, dancing, singing and setting off fireworks.

At the moment, the party is leading in 55 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, India's bellwether state. That's 16 down from the last election. But that’s been no dampener for the party workers because, they say, they are still going to form the government in Delhi.

In sharp contrast, the Congress office here is completely deserted. Party staff are stunned at the prospect that Rahul Gandhi himself could lose the family bastion of Amethi to Smriti Irani of the BJP. “Our credibility is very low. People are not trusting we are saying,” one party worker told me.

All over India, BJP headquarters are seeing massive celebrations. All but Varanasi, that is.

It's not that there's nothing to be happy about - the ancient north Indian city is seeing a massive victory for prime minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned to retain his seat there.

But according to our correspondent Yogita Limaye, the heat - 41C at the moment - is keeping people off the streets.

But expect a giant party in the evening, when temperatures cool, especially given that Mr Modi seems to be winning by yet another massive margin.