Sameer Hashmi
BBC Business reporter, Mumbai

The Indian stock markets have surged to historic levels, signalling a strong endorsement for Narendra Modi - who is all set to win a second term as prime minister.

The two main stock market benchmarks - the Sensex and the NIFTY50 - touched an all-time high as investors cheered the prospects of the BJP and its allies getting a clear majority.

Image source, Getty Images

But the new government faces quite a few challenges since the economy has been showing signs of a slowdown. Car and two-wheeler sales have fallen sharply in recent months - both categories are an important indicator of consumer demand.

Reviving private investment to help create jobs and focusing on the farming sector would be the other key priorities for the new government. Market analysts also expect Mr Modi to bring in bolder economic reforms in his second term. During his five years in power, Mr Modi initiated some key reforms. But in the second half of his term, the government adopted populist measures to attract voters ahead of the elections.

Zubair Ahmed
BBC World Service reporter

Staff at Congress Party headquarters in Delhi look lost for words.

They are unable to explain why results are going against them. The party wasn't confident of pulling off a surprise victory in the general elections but it was hoping for a much improved performance this year.

But things look so dire that by early afternoon one spokesman, while officially maintaning that trends could reverse, went ahead and admitted defeat.

We are told preparations are afoot for an evening press conference attended by senior party leaders who could accept defeat.

No one seems to know if party president Rahul Gandhi will attend.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Image source, Gett

Traditionally, the BJP has found its strongest support in India’s populous Hindi speaking states in the north. (Of the 282 seats the party won in 2014, 193 came from these states.)

The exceptions are Gujarat, Mr Modi’s native state and a BJP bastion, and Maharashtra, where the BJP has ruled in alliance with a local party.

Under Mr Modi, the BJP has expanded geographically.

They have formed governments in key north-eastern states like Assam and Tripura, which are primarily Assamese and Bengali speaking.

And in this election, the BJP - where it contested more seats than the Congress - has emerged as a force to reckon with in non-Hindi speaking states of Orissa and West Bengal on the eastern seaboard.

The party’s modest presence in southern India still doesn’t make it a truly pan-Indian party like the Congress of yore, but the BJP is definitely moving towards it.

With results showing Mr Modi's BJP are heading for a thumping majority, opposition leaders from various regional parties have taken to Twitter to admit defeat and congratulate the prime minister.

Salman Ravi
BBC World service reporter

There is a pal of gloom in the Trinamool Congress camps while the BJP cadres are rejoicing over the trends that are projecting heavy gains for the party in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

The BJP which won only two seats in the state in 2014 are now leading in 2019.

Communists, who once ruled West Bengal for three decades, now find themselves left without a political base. Most of their offices lie deserted.

Trinamool Congress legislator Dulal Chandra Das told the BBC that in order to settle political scores with his party, most communist cadres supported the BJP.

Veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) Vikas Ranjan Bhattacharjee, however, denies the allegations.

He accused both the TMC and BJP of polarising people for political gains.

Image source, Getty Images

The BJP began preparing its political base in Bengal over the last couple of years.

It ensured defections from the TMC and even gave tickets to these defecting leaders.

The state will face local elections in 2021 but senior BJP’s leader Rahul Sinha claimed that his party would form the government in another six months. He claimed many TMC leaders would defect due to the arrogance of some senior party leaders.

However, the people in West Bengal and Kolkata in particular continued to be glued to their television sets for the latest updates on election trends.

Most of the streets lay deserted as people apprehended violence after announcement of the final result. West Bengal has witnessed one of the most violent elections this time.

In the meantime, there was this tweet from TMC leader and West Bengal's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee:

Priyanka Pathak
BBC religious affairs reporter

Image source, Getty Images

The Ramayana, a 2,500-year-old Hindu mythological epic, was back in the spotlight this election.

A longstanding demand to construct a temple in the northern city of Ayodhya - a key point of tension between Hindus and Muslims - which Hindus believe is Ram's birthplace, became louder in the run-up to polls.

Hardline Hindus want the temple built on the same spot where a 16th Century mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992. They believe the Babri mosque was built after a Hindu temple was destroyed by the first Mughal emperor, Babur.

And the BJP promised, once again, in its election manifesto to reconstruct the temple.

Read the full story here.

According to Bhanu Joshi, a political scientist, it was a clever combination of caste coalitions and what he calls material development - roads, toilets etc.

Mr Joshi told the BBC that many people discounted the powerful political message of material development and the benefits that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept pointing to - the various welfare schemes under which homes were built or famileis were given subsidised cooking gas.

"In every state, however you cut the data, you will see that it is these two factors that have dominated the election," he said.

This picture is from outside the stock exchange in Mumbai - the Indian markets hit an all-time high on news that the BJP was on course to sweep back to power.

Mehbooba Mufti, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is trailing in her seat, Anantnag.

She is behind Hasnain Masoodi of the National Conference party, the regional opposition.

Image source, Getty Images

Ms Mufti's loss is not that surprising, analysts say, because she lost credibility over her decision to form a coalition government with the BJP in 2015.

But the alliance broke up after the BJP quit in June 2018, citing the "deteriorating security situation" in the state. This is the first election in Indian-administered Kashmir since direct rule was imposed.

Anantnag, includes Pulwama, the site of a suicide attack on Indian paramilitary forces in February - and is a particularly sensitive region.

It's the only seat in the Indian election that voted over three different phases for security reasons.

It is in South Kashmir, which has often been at the forefront of the clash between Kashmiris and Indian security forces.

Nitin Srivastava
BBC World Service reporter in Delhi

The mood is upbeat at BJP headquarters in Delhi as hundreds of supporters arrive to join the celebrations.

Top leaders are currently at a closed-door meeting discussing next steps like the timing and venue of the swearing-in.

Most leaders are obviously thrilled with the results so far, which have even surpassed what the exit polls predicted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his closest aide, BJP President Amit Shah, are expected to arrive only when early results have translated into seats won and in the bag.

That may be at around five in the evening local time - several hours from now.

The BBC's Vineet Khare spoke to BJP minister Giriraj Singh, external, who is leading in Begusarai, a seat in Bihar.

Mr Singh said his party won because Mr Modi worked for development and looked beyond caste. He added the prime minister's clear credibility among voters was a "slap in the face" to the media.

Mr Singh, who once said that those who oppose Prime Minister Modi should go to Pakistan, is a controversial figure who has been accused many times of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Image source, Getty Images

Although the ruling BJP has made its campaign look easy, this election - involving six weeks, 677 parties and 8,049 candidates in 543 constituencies and 900 million eligible voters - has been a bruising one.

Here are some of the main highlights of the campaign.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Supporters of the Congress party are not as happy.

Trends at the moment, look as though the BJP is set to even surpass its 2014 tally - a feat that not many but its most die-hard supporters even dreamed was possible.

Rajnath Singh, India's home minister, weighed in on Twitter.

Kanhaiya Kumar, who is contesting against the BJP in Bihar, told the BBC's Vineet Khare that he doesn't believe that there is any fraud behind what appears to be a sweeping BJP victory.

The firebrand student leader shot to fame in 2016 when he was arrested and charged with sedition. He is trailing in his seat, Begusarai.

Mr Kumar is on a Communist Party ticket.

Begusarai was won by the BJP in 2014. And the party seems to have done really well in Bihar overall. It's coalition is leading in 38 of the state's 40 seats.

Opposition parties had raised concerns of vote fraud earlier in the week after several videos, allegedly showing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) being tampered with, went viral on social media.

But the Election Commission rejected the claims.

Everything that happens inside an Indian polling station and what happens to your vote after that:

Our team in the western city of Mumbai has been talking to voters.

The BBC's India correspondent Yogita Limaye is in this ancient north Indian city - the home constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi - and has taken this video of the celebrations.

Mr Modi won here with a huge margin of more than 300,000 votes in 2014.

A BJP-led coalition in the eastern state of Bihar is leading in 38 of the state's 40 seats.

Narendra Modi's party tied up with the regional Janata Dal-United (JDU) led by chief minister Nitish Kumar and the Lok Janshakti Party.

They are on course for an even better performance than in 2014, when the BJP won 29 seats on its own.

This time the party agreed a seat-sharing deal with the JDU which looks to have worked. Each party fielded candidates in 17 seats. The remaining six seats were left to the Lok Janshakti Party to fight.

To put this in some context, the BJP won 22 seats in the state in 2014, while Mr Kumar’s party won just two.

Image source, Getty Images

These leads suggest an embarrassing defeat for the coalition of the Congress party and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). They were hoping for at least 20 seats here.

Tejashvi Yadav, the young leader of the RJD, campaigned hard all over the state for the opposition coalition.

When his father, former federal minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, was jailed in a corruption case, he assumed the leadership of the party.

It was expected that he would win his party's traditional vote banks of lower-caste Yadavs and Muslims. He also said that people loved his father and were upset that he was sent to jail. So he was banking on sympathy votes too.

But none of that appears to have mattered in the end, as the BJP is set to sweep the state.