Indian General Election Results 2019 HIGHLIGHTS: Official ECI results out, BJP wins 303 seats, Congress 52

President Ram Nath Kovind today hosted a banquet in honour of the outgoing Union Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

?????????? ??????? ?? ???????????? @narendramodi ?? ??????? ???? ????????? ????????? ???????????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????????? ??? ??? ????????? ?? ????? ????? pic.twitter.com/fBxxzXQKjW

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) May 24, 2019

The sun sets on this term but the brightness our work has brought will continue to illuminate the lives of millions.

A new dawn awaits, a new term beckons.

We are even more determined to fulfil the dreams of 130 crore Indians and create the New India all of us dreamt of. https://t.co/tKrWSwlT9d

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 24, 2019

Five months after the BJP lost the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, the party made a thumping comeback in the state Thursday, winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats along with its allies.

In most Lok Sabha constituencies of Rajasthan, the Congress candidates could never take the lead, and by Thursday evening, 15 of the 24 BJP candidates in the state were leading by a margin of over 3 lakh votes. The Congress ended up drawing a blank – the same fate it had met in 2014.

Hanuman Beniwal from the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, who had allied with the BJP and contested the elections as the NDA candidate from the Nagaur constituency, also won against Congress candidate Jyoti Mirdha by a margin of 1,81,260 lakh votes. Read more

It was a mixed outing for super rich candidates as five of them emerged victorious and an equal number suffered defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. Prominent winners include Congress' Nakul Nath, son of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, while Jyotiraditya Scindia was among big losers, as per the EC data.

The country's richest candidate Ramesh Kumar Sharma, who fought as an independent from Patliputra parliamentary seat in Bihar, lost his deposit as he secured only 1,556 votes. Sharma had declared a net asset of Rs 1,107 crore in his nomination papers.

(PTI)

The Congress can never die and the country needs it, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot asserted Friday and said the party will again reach out to people to ascertain the reasons for its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. The senior Congress leader said the BJP played on emotions and sentiments of the people and never fought on real issues.

"People's mandate in a democracy is topmost and the Congress has protected it all these 70 years since Independence and accepted it with humility. I am pained that in this election the campaign was not issue-based and there was nothing for the farmers, poor, villages, backwards, Dalits and there was no discussion on providing jobs to youths," he told PTI.

"The BJP did politics only on religion, caste, nationalism and the bravery of soldiers. Rahul Gandhi did a lot to try and make the campaign issue-based. But, no vision for future was given and no achievements were listed and the BJP won over people by speaking lies. People got swayed and voted for them," he said.

(PTI)

The Election Commission of India Friday released the final tally of Lok Sabha Elections 2019. The BJP scripted history by winning a record 303 seats out of 542 whereas the Congress could manage only 52 seats.

The Congress Working Committee will meet Saturday at 11 am to discuss the election results. The meet can also decide on the future of Rahul Gandhi as the president of the Congress after the grand old party suffered successive defeats in the Lok Sabha elections. 

Political leaders often switch parties before major polls in a bid to remain on the winning side, but that strategy does not appear to have worked in this Lok Sabha election as most turncoats failed to make it to Parliament, Election Commission data showed Friday.

Over 75 candidates had switched sides before the election, hoping to push their chance to become Members of Parliament, but at least 47 of them lost. Read more

The President accepted the resignation and requested the Prime Minister and the Union Council of Ministers to continue in office till the new Government is formed.

The President accepted the resignation and requested the Prime Minister and the Union Council of Ministers to continue in office till the new Government is formed

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) May 24, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on President Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Prime Minister tendered his resignation along with the Union Council of Ministers.

Prime Minister @narendramodi called on President Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Prime Minister tendered his resignation along with the Union Council of Ministers pic.twitter.com/zuUhC6pWfH

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) May 24, 2019

National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah said Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot remove Article 35-A and Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the prime minister should make efforts to unite the people of the country instead of dividing them.

"Let him be as powerful as he (Modi) likes, he cannot remove Article 370 and article 35-A (from the state of Jammu and Kashmir)," Abdullah told reporters here.

"Our right of Article 370 and Article 35-A should be protected. This is very important for us. We are soldiers of this country not enemies of this nation," he said.

(PTI)

Union Cabinet meeting held Friday has passed the resolution to dissolve 16th Lok Sabha. The new cabinet could be announced Saturday after NDA's Parliamentary meet.

Delhi: Union Ministers leave after the Union Cabinet meeting concluded. pic.twitter.com/AgdFcu4fcy

— ANI (@ANI) May 24, 2019

US government advisor and President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump Friday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his emphatic victory in the Lok Sabha elections. 

Congratulations @narendramodi on a great victory!

Exciting times ahead for the wonderful people of India! ??

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) May 24, 2019

I Do Not Agree pic.twitter.com/RFVjiunJQt

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) May 24, 2019

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who lost to BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, Friday said it is worrying to see the ideology of Gandhi losing to that of Nathuram Godse. "Today in this country, the ideology of the killer of Mahatma Gandhi won and the ideology of Gandhi lost. This is a cause of concern for me," ANI quoted him as saying.

Arjun Singh, elected BJP MP from Barrackpore, West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee is a vindictive woman, if you are with her your are right, if you're not with her you're wrong. She knew if I leave it will be a big setback for her and it is evident. That is why she has resorted to violence. (ANI)

All but one Left Front candidates now have the ignominy of losing their security deposit in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, a state which it had ruled continuously for 34 years till 2011.

Except CPI(M)'s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who got 21.04 per cent of the votes polled in Jadavpur, no other Left Front candidate has been able to achieve the required 16.6 per cent of the votes to retain their deposit money of Rs 25,000 each, according to Election Commission data.

In India, candidates for election to the Lok Sabha pay a security deposit of Rs 25,000. For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, the amounts are Rs 12,500 and Rs 5,000 respectively. Any candidate who fails to secure more than one-sixth (16.6 per cent) of the total valid votes cast would have to forfeit his or her deposit.

(PTI)

The NDA parliamentary committee meet will take place in Central Hall Saturday at 5pm.

Please note that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Parliamentary Party will meet in Central Hall tomorrow, 25 May, at 5pm.

— BJP (@BJP4India) May 24, 2019

After winning a historic mandate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet President Ram Nath Kovind later today. Earlier in the day, he met senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi at their residences. 

DMK Parliamentary Committee meet to be held the party headquarters in Chennai at 5 pm tomorrow. (ANI)

Amid talks of a fallout of the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka after the heavy loses they incurred in the results of Lok Sabha elections, Deputy CM G Parameshwara Thursday said the coalition is strong and both the parties are keen to foil the efforts of the opposition to destabilise the government. The coalition reposes faith in the leadership of Kumaraswamy as chief minister, he said.

Deputy CM also said that a meeting of Congress ministers and legislators were held and they all have reposed faith in the present government and the leadership of CM Kumaraswamy.

A day after Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost his home turf Amethi to BJP's Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha elections, the district Congress Committee president Yogendra Mishra resigned from the post taking responsibility for the defeat.

Earlier yesterday, Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi from Amethi by a margin of over 40,000 votes. She is only the third non-Congress candidate to have won from the seat.

In a statement to ANI, Congress leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said there is no threat to the JD(S)-Congress coalition government. His statement comes a day after the BJP swept Karnataka, winning 25/28 Lok Sabha seats. 

BJP’s Kendrapara Lok Sabha candidate Baijayant Jay Panda lost to BJD candidate and Rajya Sabha MP Anubhav Mohanty, who won with a margin of 1,52,584 votes. Panda had won the seat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls as a BJD candidate. However, ahead of the 2019 polls, he defected to the BJP following differences with the party leadership.

The president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Niranjan Patnaik has resigned from his post after the party won 1 Lok Sabha seat and only nine Assembly seats in the state. "I have sent my resignation to Rahul Gandhi owning moral responsibility for the party's poor show in both Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the state," Patnaik was quoted as saying by PTI.

While Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is reaping the reward of the hard work he has done over the last eight years ever since he founded YSR Congress Party in March 2011, the success in Andhra Pradesh is another feather in the cap of political strategist Prashant Kishor and his Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) team. Sreenivas Janyala decodes how the duo outsmarted N Chandrababu Naidu.

A day after the party's dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar submitted his resignation to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, reported news agency PTI. Meanwhile, Karnataka's Congress campaign committee president, HK Patil, has also resigned from the party saying it was his "moral duty to own up the responsibility". According to ANI, Patil also said it was time for the party to "introspect".

In what was seen as the contest of spokespersons, BJP’s Sambit Patra lost a close fight against BJD MP Pinaki Mishra in Puri Lok Sabha seat. In a see-saw battle, spokesperson and sitting BJD MP Mishra finally emerged as a winner by a margin of 11,714 votes. Overall in the state, the party has won 8/21 seats.

Priyanka Gandhi was inducted into the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to help the party make inroads in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. However, an analysis of the results show that the Congress lost all but two seats where Priyanka campaigned. Moreover, in the 12 seats she campaigned for outside UP, Congress lost 11. 

Drawing a blank in as many as 19 states and Union Territories and managing only 52 seats elsewhere, the Congress Thursday suffered a humiliating defeat yet again in the Lok Sabha elections. The strongest pointer to the rout and decimation of the Congress was the loss of Gandhi stronghold Amethi after 15 years where party president Rahul Gandhi was defeated by Smriti Irani of the BJP. Manoj C G on the rumblings in the party.

Election Commission officials are still counting votes for eight Lok Sabha seats. Who has won till now? Here is a FULL LIST of winners state-wise. Right now, the tally stands at NDA (350), UPA (86) and Others (106).

The Cabinet and Union Council of Minister will meet this evening, a day after the BJP-led NDA came back to power with a thumping majority. The dates for Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony and his visits to various parts of the country are yet to be finalised.

The #Cabinet & Union Council of Ministers are to meet this evening.
The dates for the swearing-in ceremony & PM @narendramodi's visits to various parts of the country are yet to be decided.

— Sitanshu Kar (@DG_PIB) May 24, 2019

The 2014 Lok Sabha election was deemed India’s first “digital election”, in which technology brought in an unprecedented factor. In 2019, the novelty had faded. From a competition of followers and likes on the Internet, the narrative battle shifted to the ground as the BJP leveraged its cadre to spread its message further. Read Karishma Mehrotra's analysis here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have met BJP veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi to seek his blessings, a day after the BJP won a massive victory in the Lok Sabha elections 2019. The leaders had also met L K Advani this morning.

Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi is a scholar and intellectual par excellence. His contribution towards improving Indian education is remarkable. He has always worked to strengthen the BJP and mentor several Karyakartas, including me.

Met him this morning and sought his blessings. pic.twitter.com/gppfDt7KiB

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 24, 2019

Turning caste calculations on its head, and upending the formidable arithmetic of the Mandal formula’s main protagonists in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the BJP-led NDA has virtually flattened the politics of identity by winning 103 of the 120 Lok Sabha seats in the two states. Read Ravish Tiwari's explainer on BJP’s surge in the Hindi heartland.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweets, "Called on respected Advani Ji. The BJP’s successes today are possible because greats like him spent decades building the party and providing a fresh ideological narrative to the people."

Called on respected Advani Ji. The BJP’s successes today are possible because greats like him spent decades building the party and providing a fresh ideological narrative to the people. pic.twitter.com/liXK8cfsrI

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 24, 2019

A day after the BJP scripted a historic mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah have arrived at L K Advani's residence to meet the party veteran. According to ANI, they are likely to visit leader Murli Manohar Joshi too. 

Sensex is up over 400 points in early trade, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP got an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections. The rupee has also appreciated 23 paise to 69.78 against the US dollar. Sensex is trading 170.51 points, or 0.44 per cent, higher at 38,981.90. Nifty is up 54.15 points, or 0.46 per cent, at 11,711.20.

To give Narendra Modi credit: He won because India identifies with him. What that says about India is something we will figure out over the next five years. Modi deserves his victory. But this is also a moment of dread for Indian democracy. Let us be clear. This is the greatest concentration of power in modern Indian history. Read the opinion column 'Staggering dominance' here.

From stitching up new social coalitions to choosing the right leaders for election management to keeping out senior leaders from the election fray – Amit Shah’s is arguably the last word in organisational matters. Liz Mathew maps Shah's journey over the last five year, and how he used a multi-pronged approach to revitalise the BJP.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has secured a massive mandate for a fifth term as BJD withstood BJP's onslaught across the country. Although its Lok Sabha tally is likely to dip, the party has retained power in the Odisha Assembly polls. “We will have a constructive relationship with the Central government for the development and welfare of Odisha,” Naveen told news agency ANI.

A victory of this magnitude speaks of an appeal that has breached vote banks and also drawn into its fold the aspirational and the poor. How the BJP responds to their historic second term will matter to all those who have stakes in the quality — and future — of this great democracy. Read The Indian Express editorial today.

As counting of votes in the Lok Sabha elections wind down, here's a look at the numbers and who won how much. The NDA has won 351 seats in the 543-member House. The Congress and its allies in the UPA have secured 86 seats, and parties not allied with either of the two fronts have garnered 105 seats. The BJP alone has won 302 seats, while the Congress has 54 seats — one short of being able to claim the statutory position of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

#ElectionResults2019 | This is how the new political map of India looks.

Read more analysis of #LokSabhaEelctions2019 here: https://t.co/1l3o4fD9YT pic.twitter.com/931tNrKphe

— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) May 24, 2019

How does the BJP triumph compare with the one in 2014, which it has bettered? Where does it leave the Congress and the Left, and what is its significance for the voter? What are the implications for Rahul Gandhi and other ‘dynasts’? The key takeaways from the verdict that has returned Narendra Modi to power. P Vaidyanathan Iyer, Monojit Majumdar answer all your questions in this detailed explainer.

A day after the announcement of the 2019 Lok Sabha election results, we continue our LIVE coverage. The focus now shifts to the formation of the government, and the swearing-in of the Narendra Modi Cabinet that could happen over the weekend. Stay tuned, as we bring you the latest news and updates.