Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its national majority after suffering major losses in key states, marking a dramatic shift in a political landscape it has dominated for the past decade. Now in the last cabinet meeting of the current tenure, PM Modi said winning and losing are part of politics. PM Modi's BJP, which won 282 seats in 2014 and 303 in the 2019 election, won 240 seats this time - 32 short of the 272-majority mark. It will now depend on the 53 seats won by members of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to form government. "We have done good work for the last 10 years. We will continue doing so," PM Modi told NDA leaders at the last cabinet meeting.
On the Lok Sabha election results - the NDA will stake claim to form government for a third time, calling the results a victory of the world's largest democracy - PM Modi said, "Winning and losing are part of politics. The numbers game will go on. "The Prime Minister thanked Union Ministers for giving their best in the past 10 years. "All of you have worked very hard," PM Modi said. Earlier in the day, PM Modi chaired a meeting of the Union Cabinet to take stock of the Lok Sabha election results and also discussed matters related to the formation of the next government, sources said.
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The meeting at the Prime Minister's residence began at 11.30 am. This was the last meeting of the Modi 2.0 Cabinet and Council of Ministers. Exit Polls on June 1 had predicted a clear majority for the BJP-led NDA. Almost all the exit polls projected 350-370 seats for the NDA and 107-140 seats for the Opposition's INDIA bloc. However, the official results showed the BJP winning 240 seats, and its NDA bagging around 290 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. In the current scenario, the BJP has acquired 240 seats, short of the majority mark of 272 seats. However, along with its allies, namely the TDP and JD(U), the NDA has attained 292 seats. As leader of the NDA, Narendra Modi will be invited by the President to form the next government.