Modi celebrates victory in India vote, but falls short of landslide

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi s political alliance won India s weeks long general election on Tuesday, but the opposition said voters had se...

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political alliance won India's weeks-long general election on Tuesday, but the opposition said voters had sent a clear message after his Hindu nationalist party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in a decade.

Commentators and exit polls had projected an overwhelming victory for Modi, whose campaign wooed the Hindu majority to the worry of the country's 200-million-plus Muslim community, deepening concerns over minority rights.

The alliance led by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an overall parliamentary majority, results on the election commission website showed late Tuesday.

But the BJP itself was projected to secure only 240 seats of its own, well down on the 303 it won at the last polls five years ago, meaning it would need to rely on its alliance partners to pass legislation.

India had given the party and its allies a mandate "for a third consecutive time", Modi told a crowd of cheering supporters in the capital New Delhi.