Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Baharatiya Janata Party has lost its parliamentary majority in the country's general election and will need a coalition with National Democratic Alliance partners to stay in office for a third straight term.
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00:00The 73-year-old self-avowed man-of-the-people elected leader of the world's most populous
00:08country for a third straight term.
00:11India's incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won the world's biggest elections
00:16but not by the landslide widely expected.
00:28As leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, Modi's brand of right-wing Hindu nationalism
00:34and his cash transfer programmes to low-income families have made him popular at home over
00:40the last decade.
00:42He's credited with strengthening India's international presence and has promised to further bolster
00:47manufacturing, tech and clean energy to lift India two spots to become the world's third
00:53largest economy in the next five years.
00:57Modi beat INDIA, an alliance of 26 opposition parties led by Rahul Gandhi, but the result
01:04defied expectations as the opposition made major gains helping dampen what many had thought
01:10would be a massive BJP victory.
01:21With a world record-breaking turnout of 642 million voters, these elections took months
01:28and several stages of voting across 543 constituencies.
01:33The BJP won 240 seats in India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, falling short of a majority
01:40needed to form a government, less than they won in 2019, 303, and even in 2014, 282.
01:53This loss of seats has come as a surprise to many as Modi had been leading in the public
01:58opinion polls ahead of the vote.
02:01But for his opponents, Modi's Hindu-centric rule has verged on authoritarian and they
02:07had been pushing to persuade voters not to choose him.
02:29Despite rapid economic growth and massive welfare spending, poverty remains a problem
02:35among the agriculture-dependent workforce.
02:38And some of the country's Muslim minority fear social marginalisation and even physical
02:43attacks from Modi's right-wing supporters.
02:47He's eased tense relations with China, but the ongoing risk of clashes at the two countries'
02:52shared border, which surfaced nearly four years ago and have led to an ongoing stand-off,
02:58will test his diplomatic acumen.
03:01And now facing a strengthened opposition, which won over a significant portion of the
03:06electorate, Modi will be under the most pressure of his entire premiership.
03:28Without the strong single majority it enjoyed in 2019, the BJP will have to form a coalition
03:34with smaller parties to form a government.
03:37Set to serve another five-year term, Modi's meagre win has been welcomed by his supporters
03:43here with fairly muted celebrations.
03:46As the face of the BJP, the surprise setback is a reflection on him and may show that India's
03:53Modi fever is beginning to cool.
03:56John Suh, Suvarn Pal and Sally Jensen in New Delhi for Taiwan Plus.