We are pausing our live coverage of India's election results. The past two days have been momentous for the country as Narendra Modi's party fell far short of a landslide victory, instead having to depend on allies to form the government.

The opposition, on the other hand, has much to celebrate as its partnership brought it better results than anyone had predicted.

As Modi looks set to return as prime minister, it will be interesting to watch how he deals with managing not just his partners but also rivals stronger than they have been at any time during the past 10 years of his rule.

Read more about today's development's here

Now that the coalition partners have backed Modi, he is expected to meet President Droupadi Murmu soon and stake a claim to form the government.

Local media outlets, including NDTV news channel, have reported that he is likely to take the oath on Saturday. There has been no official confirmation of this so far.

And let's not forget that the opposition is yet to concede, despite not having enough seats to form the government.

Even so, at this stage, a new plot twist looks unlikely.

So what do the results tell us?published at 15:28 British Summer Time 5 June

15:28 BST 5 June

Soutik Biswas
Reporting from Delhi

Our correspondent Soutik Biswas analysed what the surprising results mean for the BJP, the opposition and Indian politics.

His big takeaways:

A dent in brand Modi: Modi’s popularity has been also attributed to his mastery of branding, but that has lost some of its shine, indicating that he is susceptible to anti-incumbency.

A return to coalition politics: If the BJP forms the government, it will be dependent on allies and will need to adopt a more consultative and deliberative approach.

A jolt to the dominant BJP: Mr Modi's party has dominated Indian politics for a decade. But Tuesday’s result has restored India to what many consider "normal politics", with a range of parties sharing and competing for power.

A resurgent opposition: The results will energise the much-criticised Congress-led opposition.

Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Congress party, has shared on X what he told the opposition INDIA bloc at the start of their meeting in Delhi.

"We fought well, fought unitedly, fought resolutely. 2. The mandate is decisively against Mr. Modi, against him and the substance and style of his politics. It is a huge political loss for him personally apart from being a clear moral defeat as well," Mr Kharge wrote.

The meeting is going on in the Indian capital.

Image source, BJP/X

The BJP has now posted a statement on X saying that Modi has been "unanimously" chosen the leader of the National Democratic Alliance. More significantly, the statement has the names of 21 leaders, including TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu and representatives of the JD(U).

Both parties are crucial to the alliance comfortably crossing the 272-seat mark to form the government as the BJP by itself does not have a simple majority.

This means the BJP is confident it has the support of its allies and is expected to stake claim to form a government.

"The NDA government under the leadership of Shri Modi ji is committed to serve the poor, women, youth, farmers and exploited, deprived and oppressed citizens of India," the statement said.

Earlier, the leaders were seen attending a meeting led by Modi. The leaders looked relaxed, and some were even seen sharing a laugh with him.

Both the TDP and JD(U) are former Congress allies and joined Mr Modi's bloc a few months before the elections.

Regional parties can spring surprises, but it seems all is well within the alliance for now.

The opposition INDIA bloc meeting is still going on.

Prajakta Pol
BBC Marathi, Mumbai

We bring you one more voice from a voter, who told the BBC why he thought the BJP did worse than expected this election.

Chaitanya Prabhu, who hails from India's financial capital Mumbai, says that the results reflect how India thinks.

"Because of our bitter experience with colonialism, Indians have always been averse to being "ruled"," Mr Prabhu says. "Govern, but don't rule us," is how we think."

"People needed their immediate problems solved - like a lack or jobs or water shortages, and that the government didn't do," he adds.

Image source, Reuters

Written off after massive losses in 2014 and 2019, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party has surpassed expectations this time.

While he’s no longer the official leader of the Congress, he has won both the parliamentary seats he contested - in Wayanad, Kerala, and Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh - with massive margins (he won back Wayanad but had lost the family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in a humiliating defeat in 2019).

The 53-year-old hails from the Nehru-Gandhi family - his father, grandmother and great-grandfather have all been prime ministers of the country.

The Cambridge-educated politician became the president of Congress in 2017, but stepped down following the 2019 election after the party dealt with a series of losses.

He has often been mocked by Modi and the BJP as a non-serious politician but two long marches he undertook across the country in the past couple of years helped him undo that image. And now, his Congress party has almost doubled its seat count from the last election to 99.

So the man considered the face of the opposition will be taken much more seriously in his next stint in parliament.

Roxy Gagdekar
BBC Gujarati, Ahmedabad

There are 26 parliamentary seats in the western state of Gujarat and the BJP had been winning all of them since 2014. Modi was chief minister of the state before he became the prime minister that year.

At the start of the election campaign this year, the state BJP chief, CR Patil, had set a target of winning each constituency with a margin of half a million votes.

Meanwhile, the Congress party was seen to be at its weakest, as many senior leaders had left the party to join the BJP.

Despite this, the Congress managed to win one constituency, breaking the BJP's winning streak.

Talking to the BBC, the winning Congress candidate, Geniben Thakor, said that the victory was a much-needed lifeline for the party in the state.

Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the regional Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh state, has turned out to be one of the biggest success stories of this election.

Yadav’s party, which is part of the opposition INDIA alliance, won 37 of the 80 seats in the state.

Moments ago, he arrived in Delhi for the opposition bloc's meeting, where he was mobbed by supporters and the media.

We're now seeing visuals of leaders from the NDA leaving after the meeting of the BJP-led alliance at Modi's official residence.

The meeting was attended by many leaders including caretaker home minister Amit Shah, caretaker defence minister Rajnath Singh, JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. (As we explained, both the JD(U) and TDP are crucial to the NDA forming the government)

"Everyone put forth their views and thanked the public for this mandate to the NDA for a third time," Sanjay Kumar Jha, an MP from the alliance, told the PTI news agency, after the meeting.

"The government under the leadership of Narendra Modi will soon be formed, and very soon a meeting of all the MPs will take place."

India's President Droupadi Murmu has formally dissolved the 17th Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) "with immediate effect", her official account has posted on X (formerly Twitter). This is a formality ahead of the formation of the next government. Earlier in the day, the president had accepted the resignation of Narendra Modi and his council of ministers.

We continue bringing you voices from the ground and here's what another voter had to say about the results.

Dev Sharma, 39, who voted in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, says that he hadn't anticipated that PM Modi's BJP would not win a majority.

The BJP won 240 seats, several seats short of the 272 mark needed to form a government independently.

Mr Sharma says that he thought that the BJP would "easily win around 350 seats".

"Modi's 10 years as prime minister has been good for the country," he says. "He improved education, healthcare, infrastructure and even the country's security."

Mr Sharma says that the unexpected result was perhaps because people wanted change. "But it's hard to say what's the change they want. The BJP lost despite building the Ram temple in Ayodhya..."

Mr Sharma was referring to the BJP's loss in Faizabad constituency, which is home to the temple town of Ayodhya, where Modi inaugurated a grand temple in January.

Caroline Davies
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

The front pages of several newspapers in Pakistan focused on India’s election results. Neighbours India and Pakistan have a tense relationship.

English language newspaper Dawn's main headline said ‘India defeats hate, Modi left at mercy of Muslim-friendly allies’.

Several commentators expressed satisfaction about Modi's weakened majority, interpreting the result as a response to hardline rhetoric from him and his party.

The BJP was accused of demonising Muslims during the campaign and using voters' distrust of Pakistan to persuade them.

But few people interviewed on the street felt this result would change the relations between the two countries.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hasn't yet commented on the results.

There was some jubilation on social media that Modi’s party had failed to win Faizabad, the seat which includes Ayodhya city, where Modi inaugurated a grand new Hindu temple to Ram in January.

After Pakistan’s own election this year, which was met with widespread accusations of vote stealing, some also urged the country to learn lessons from India’s election campaign.

One former Pakistan envoy to Washington posted on social media platform X, "Congratulations to the people of India for going through their 18th parliamentary election since 1947 and never having to deal with allegations of massive rigging or stolen mandates."

Prajakta Pol
BBC Marathi, Mumbai

We spoke to voters in India's financial capital, Mumbai city in Maharashtra state, and here's what Seema Khan had to say about the results.

The governing BJP-led alliance performed poorly in the state, winning just 17 out of the 48 seats.

"The 10 years of Mr Modi's rule has been marked by an increase in fights based on religion and divisive politics," she says.

"On the other hand, unemployment has been on the rise and the government hasn't done anything to bring down the prices of necessities," Khan says.

She also says that the prime minister didn't do much to "connect with the common man".

"I think Modi has lost the aura he once had," she adds.

Soutik Biswas
Reporting from Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

The most reliable predictor of who will form the federal government in India is often who wins all the seats in Delhi.

Historically, the capital has been a significant indicator of national outcomes. In 17 general elections, a single party swept all Delhi seats nine times. Only in 1967, 1989, and 1991 did the party that won Delhi not form the central government.

In the 2024 polls, the main opposition Congress and the regional AAP teamed up against the BJP in Delhi’s seven seats. But the BJP made a clean sweep for a third time in a row.

Voters in Delhi distinguish between local and national issues. They elect Arvind Kejriwal's AAP in local elections for improving government schools, public clinics, and providing free electricity. However, in general elections, they predominantly support the incumbent party at the centre based on national issues.

We are hearing more from voters in Varanasi, Modi's constituency.

Vishakha Tripathi says she appreciates the work he has done as prime minister but thinks the election results reflect the concerns of the common man.

"There is development, the roads are getting better, and he's built a lot of temples, including the one in Ayodhya."

But she says price rises and unemployment are the main issues.

"How does the common man save anything or run their house? Our main concerns are food, clothes and housing. How do we plan for our children's education and their future? All of this has become difficult."

Leaders of the BJP-led NDA alliance have arrived at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg - the official residence of the prime minister - for a meeting.

They are likely to discuss the formation of their coalition government and ministerial berths that will be given to various parties.

Among the leaders seen arriving are key allies Nitish Kumar - chief minister of Bihar state and leader of JD(U) - and N Chandrababu Naidu, chief of the TDP.

Their numbers will be crucial in taking the alliance over the 272-mark needed to form a government so their moves are being closely watched.

Earlier today, Modi met Indian President Draupadi Murmu, who formally accepted his resignation as prime minister and also that of his cabinet of ministers ahead of the formation of a new government.

Sanjoy Majumder
BBC News, Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

One of the strongest performances by the opposition India alliance came from the eastern state of West Bengal. This is where the BJP was pitted against the regional Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, led by India’s most powerful female politician, Mamata Banerjee.

The state sends 42 MPs to parliament, the most after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The BJP had hoped to improve its performance here - it held 19 seats previously - in part to offset losses anticipated in other parts of the country.

When I visited the state during the campaign, it appeared to be a tightly fought contest.

Modi campaigned vigorously, frequently targeting the Muslim minority and talking up alleged illegal migration from neighbouring Bangladesh.

But the TMC won 29 seats on Tuesday, reducing the BJP’s seat count to 12.

What appears to have worked is Banerjee’s welfare pitch, on the back of schemes targeting vulnerable groups, especially women. This may have trumped Modi’s nationalist appeal.

We're continuing to bring you voicers from voters, especially from Uttar Pradesh which significantly dampened the BJP's fortunes. Here is Dhruv Singh, who is from Varanasi - one of India's holiest cities and also PM Modi's constituency.

Modi's slim victory margin there was surprisingly slim by his standards - he won by 150,000 votes, whereas in 2019, he'd won by more than 400,000 votes - Mr Dhruv says he thinks this happened because Modi had failed to address the problems faced by ordinary people.

He also says that PM Modi's BJP failed to win the majority - something the party managed to do in the two previous elections - because people didn't want a single party to hold power at the federal level.

"One-party governments have the propensity to move towards dictatorship, something people sensed happening during Modi's rule and so they voted for a coalition government," Mr Singh says.

Cherylann Mollan
Reporting from Mumbai

Image source, INDIA TODAY / YOUTUBE

As votes were being counted on Tuesday, a video quickly went viral on social media. But it didn't feature politicians.

It showed Pradeep Gupta, chairman and managing director of data firm Axis My India, crying on a news channel.

Mr Gupta, who had been invited on the channel as a panellist to discuss the results, broke down after the data trickling in turned out to be vastly different from what his firm had predicted in its exit poll.

While the India Today-Axis My India exit polls had predicted that the BJP-led NDA alliance would win 361-401 seats in parliament, the bloc ended up winning 293 seats.

It had also predicted that the opposition INDIA bloc would win 131-166 seats, but the coalition won 232 seats.

The anchors were seen consoling Mr Gupta even as the programme continued on live TV. Watch from 7 minutes onwards here, external