Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

The bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh - commonly called UP - appears to be living up to its reputation that the way to Delhi passes through here.

The BJP’s good showing in the state in the previous two general elections had fuelled the party's rise to power in Delhi – it had won 71 seats out of 80 in 2014, and 62 in 2019.

But this year, as trends show, the party is leading only in 35 seats, while the opposition INDIA bloc is leading in 44 constituencies.

Anti-incumbency appears to have dented the BJP's vote share as it also governs the state. The party's divisive campaign seems to have consolidated Muslim votes for the opposition.

The BJP also suffered as two major opposition parties - the Samajwadi Party and the Congress - fought the elections together.

You can read more on the battleground state here

Image source, Getty Images

Narendra Modi has been India's prime minister for a decade and is the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He routinely tops polls for the most popular politicians in India and is vying for a third term in office. Early trends suggest this is likely, as the BJP-led alliance is leading in a majority of seats.

But the trends are being seen as a personal setback to Mr Modi as it appears unlikely that the BJP will win a majority on its own.

Political observers say Mr Modi's charisma, coupled with welfare schemes and a publicity blitz, has helped the party win successive general elections.

This is despite criticisms around the rising rate of unemployment - especially among the young - and increasing prices. Party leaders, including Mr Modi himself, have also been criticised for making anti-Muslim remarks during the election campaign.

Mr Modi's BJP, which leads the ruling NDA alliance, has won two seats so far and is ahead in 239 seats. This is well short of its performance in the last election.

In 2019, the party had won 303 seats with the alliance winning a total of 353 seats.

Image source, Getty Images

The lower house of India's parliament - known as the Lok Sabha - has 543 seats in total.

To form a government, a party or coalition needs to win 272 seats.

The BJP-led alliance had set itself an ambitious target of winning 400 seats, but trends suggest that they may not get to that number - it's currently leading in around 295 seats.

We're still a while away from knowing the final results.

At the moment, we have early trends coming in, which give us a rough idea about which party is leading in which constituency.

Counting is still under way, and it'll be a few hours before the Election Commission of India releases official data, which will declare the winner.

Stay tuned!

Image source, Getty Images

One of the BJP’s strongest hopes, K Annamalai, is trailing in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore seat by more than 23,000 votes.

The party had high hopes that the former police officer would help them gain in a state that has traditionally rejected it.

Leading here is Ganapathy P Rajkumar, a former mayor of Coimbatore city. Mr Rajkumar is from the regional DMK party, which rules the state.

According to current election trends, the BJP is not leading in any seat in the state, while the INDIA alliance parties are doing well.

Aamir Peerzada
Reporting from Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

Now for some news from Indian-administered Kashmir, where a former legislator, who's been in jail since 2019 in a terror funding case, has stunned everyone by winning with a margin of 100,000 votes.

Sheikh Abdul Rashid, also known as "engineer Rashid", won from Baramulla constituency as an independent candidate, beating former chief minister Omar Abdullah from the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party.

"I think it’s time to accept the inevitable. Congratulations to Engineer Rashid for his victory in North Kashmir," Mr Abdullah wrote on X (formerly Twitter) just minutes ago.

Mr Rashid is often described as a maverick leader and is known for his controversial political views.

He is lodged in Tihar jail in Delhi, so it was his son who campaigned on his behalf - organising roadshows which drew thousands of people and struck a chord with the region's youth.

Image source, Getty Images

Jugal Purohit
Reporting from Delhi

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) office in Delhi wears a somewhat forlorn look as its candidates are not leading in any seat in the Indian capital (the AAP contested four and Congress three seats in Delhi as part of the alliance).

In the neighbouring state of Punjab, where the AAP was voted to power only two years ago, its candidates are leading in just three out of 13 seats.

The party faced a major challenge just days before voting began as its leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested in connection with a corruption case - Mr Kejriwal and his party have denied all the allegations.

But despite early trends going against them, AAP leaders and supporters say that they remain hopeful as counting hasn't finished yet.

AAP leaders at the party office are in a huddle and are not speaking to the media.

But some party supporters told us that the opposition INDIA alliance, of which AAP is a member, is doing well in many states and they are happy on that account.

Bikram Sarkar
Reporting from Assam

I'm at a counting booth in Karimganj district in the north-eastern state of Assam.

The state is reeling from massive flooding from rainfall triggered by cyclone Remal, which hit the coasts of India and Bangladesh last week.

About 15 people died in Assam and thousands have been affected.

Counting of ballots is under way even in these difficult circumstances. Water had flooded the booth I'm at, and poll officials were working hard to flush out the water so that counting could proceed unhindered.

According to the Election Commission, the BJP is currently leading in nine seats in the state, while Congress is ahead in three.

Cherylann Mollan
Reporting from Delhi

Image source, Getty Images

The BJP has been trying hard to make inroads in the south - PM Modi made several visits to the region this year.

A victory in Hyderabad - the current capital of one southern state (Telangana) and the former capital of another (Andhra Pradesh) - would have been seen as a big win for the BJP, but it is currently trailing there.

The BJP fielded K Madhavi Latha, a social worker who is making her electoral debut but has gained national attention for her fiery, communally-charged speeches.

But Hyderabad has been the bastion of the Owaisi family for 40 years. Asaduddin Owaisi, chief of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party, has won from the constituency for four consecutive terms, while his father before him had won six.

According to trends, Mr Owaisi is leading by more than 200,000 votes.

The BBC's Samira Hussain reports from outside the Election Commission as results continue to roll out.

Image source, Getty Images

PM Narendra Modi has a comfortable lead of over 98,000 votes in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi seat, where he is the incumbent MP.

Prominent regional Samajwadi Party and the Congress have fielded Ajay Rai as their joint candidate.

Mr Modi won with a vote share of more than 63% here in 2019.

Pinaki Chakraborty
Reporting from Delhi

The BJP's Smriti Irani, who was minister for women and child development in Narendra Modi's government, looks likely to lose Amethi - a city in the northern part of India that was long considered a bastion of the Gandhi family and the Congress party.

Rahul Gandhi had won the seat three times since his political debut in 2004, but in 2019, Ms Irani defeated him by 55,000 votes in a huge boost for the BJP. This time, the Congress nominated a Gandhi family loyalist, KL Sharma, from Amethi.

According to the trends available so far, Ms Irani is trailing behind Mr Sharma by about 50,700 votes. If the trends hold, this would be a big blow for the BJP.

During her term in office, Ms Irani was criticised for being silent on some prominent cases of violence against women which had made global headlines.

Opposition leaders had criticised her for not commenting on the alleged sexual harassment of female wrestlers by BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Mr Singh has denied the allegations.

The BJP-led alliance, NDA, is leading in 298 seats - that's a lead of more than 70 seats over the opposition INDIA alliance.

But the current lead is lower than the BJP's expectations, as it was hoping that the NDA would cross 400 seats.

As we mentioned earlier, you’ll come across quite a few abbreviations in this live page. Here are the big ones you need to know because they'll appear frequently:

• BJP: The Bharatiya Janata Party which governs India - the party and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are aiming for a third term in power
• INDIA: Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, a coalition of opposition parties including the once-dominant Congress party
• NDA: National Democratic Alliance, a coalition of parties led by the BJP.

Apart from these, many regional parties are also commonly known by acronyms such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP - in power in Delhi and Punjab) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC - governs West Bengal).

Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

Delhi elects only seven MPs, but winning the Indian capital is rewarding for a party since it’s the seat of power and the city where the parliament is located.

Mr Modi's NDA coalition is leading in all seven seats, according to early trends.

In 2019 too, BJP had swept Delhi, winning all the seats. But this time around, it was expected to be a much more keenly fought contest.

And that's because just weeks before polling began in mid-April, Delhi’s popular Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and jailed on accusations of corruption.

Image source, Team Kejriwal

Mr Kejriwal accused the government of levelling false charges against him since his party had defeated the BJP three times in Delhi state elections.

Last month, the Supreme Court freed him on bail so that he could campaign for his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He returned to prison on 2 June once the polling had ended.

At his campaign rallies, Mr Kejriwal exhorted his supporters to vote for his party to ensure he wouldn’t have to remain in prison for long.

But if the early trends hold, it won't be good news for the Delhi chief minister.

The BJP's headquarters in Delhi is swarming with journalists and the party's spokespersons as voting trends continue to come in.

Yogita Limaye
Reporting from Delhi

As we reported earlier, the mood at the BJP headquarters in Delhi is relatively subdued - early trends show that though Narendra Modi's BJP is leading in a majority of seats, the numbers are far below the target set by the party and the prime minister.BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam told the BBC that he's confident his party will form the next government and that the final results will be in line with their expectations.

“We are likely to get closer to 400 seats, which is what our objective is,” he said.

When asked about the BJP campaign being overtly divisive, and specifically, about Mr Modi’s comment about ‘infiltrators’ that was widely seen as being anti-Muslim, Mr Islam said that the comment was not directed at Indian Muslims but at illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. During one of his campaign speeches in Rajasthan state, Mr Modi had said, "When their (Congress) government was in power, they had said Muslims have the first right on the nation’s wealth."

“This means they’ll collect the wealth and give it to whom? To those who have many children. To infiltrators,” he added.

The remarks were heavily criticised by opposition parties.However, Mr Islam said Muslims had been among the biggest beneficiaries of Mr Modi’s welfare schemes.

Just a few months ago, Narendra Modi was in the town of Ayodhya inaugurating a grand temple to the Hindu god Ram.

The temple's construction had been a decades-long pledge of the BJP, replacing a 16th Century mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.

Many saw it as the unofficial launch of his campaign, and the temple's construction was celebrated by a majority of Hindus.

But as the trends stand now, the opposition alliance candidate Awadhesh Prasad is ahead of the BJP's Lallu Singh in Faizabad constituency - which includes Ayodhya.

It is a narrow lead of 4,400 votes for Mr Prasad, who belongs to the Samajwadi Party. That party is in alliance with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh state, where it is performing better than exit polls suggested.

If you're just joining us now, here's what's happened so far:

• Votes are being counted in the world's biggest election, held in seven phases over six weeks with hundreds of millions of people voting.
• Early trends show Narendra Modi's BJP-led NDA alliance is leading in nearly 300 seats.
• Most exit polls had suggested a comfortable win for Mr Modi's party, which is eyeing a rare third consecutive term in power.
• However, the opposition alliance INDIA is performing better than expected and is ahead in more than 200 seats.
• A party or alliance needs to win 272 seats in the 543-member parliament to form the government
• That said, it is still too early to say anything - sometimes, parties and alliances can take an early lead only to lose once the final tally is in.

Stay tuned!