Modi poised to win third term but may fall short of

Early results indicate prime minister’s BJP party unlikely to win two-thirds majority predicted by exit polls

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, looks poised to win a third term in power – but early election results indicate he has not achieved the landslide victory many had predicted.

By early Tuesday afternoon, with half of the 640m votes counted, initial results showed that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and its political allies had won 290 seats, enough to form a majority government to rule for the next five years.