India's Modi could win third term, polls predict

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to win a third consecutive term in office, exit polls suggest.

Analysts warn the polls, released by various news agencies, have often been wrong in the past and are not impartial.

However, they have placed Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the frontrunner in the general election.

The BJP, the main opposition Congress party and regional rivals battled it out in a fierce campaign over seven phases of polling.

Results will be announced on 4 June.

A party or coalition needs 272 seats in parliament to form a government.

The BJP led-coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), will cross this target - according to exit polls, which forecast it being close to taking about two-thirds of the seats.

In his first comments after voting ended, Mr Modi claimed victory without referring to the exit polls.

"I can say with confidence that the people of India have voted in record numbers to re-elect the NDA government," he wrote on X, without providing evidence of his claim.

What are the exit polls saying?

Prime Minister Modi came into this election with resounding popularity, but his main rival - the leader of the Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi - and a coalition of opposition parties gathered significant momentum through the course of the lengthy election campaign.

Now an aggregate of six exit polls forecasts big wins for the BJP-led NDA, but such surveys are not always reliable.

Though the individual numbers vary, they predict that the NDA will get between 355 and 380 seats.

The INDIA bloc is expected to get between 125 and 165 seats, according to the Reuters news agency.

On its own, the BJP may win about 327 seats, not quite meeting its 370-seat target.