'Winning, losing part of politics': Modi tells NDA leader in last cabinet meeting

Modi's BJP, which won 282 seats in 2014 and 303 in the 2019 election, won 240 seats this time, which is 32 short of the 272-majority mark.

The BJP is now banking on the 53 seats won by members of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to form the 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, PM Modi said, "Winning and losing are part of politics. The numbers game will go on."

Earlier in the day, Modi met President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in Delhi on Wednesday, a day after his BJP-led NDA won the Indian general polls for the third straight term since coming to power in 2014, to tender his resignation.

The President asked Modi to continue in his post till he takes oath as the PM for another term.

Modi won the Lok Sabha polls from temple city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, a politically crucial state where the saffron brigade suffered a setback at the hand of INDIA alliance.

Modi defeated his opponent Ajay Rai of the Congress by less than 1.5 lakh votes.

This is the third time he won the Varanasi seat since making his debut as MP in 2014.

Modi had kickstarted the campaign for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by setting the target for 370 seats and 400 for the NDA alliance this time.

Quite contrary to the "Abki bar 400 par" or "400 plus seats this time" slogan, Modi's BJP failed to achieve the majority mark (272) on its own, paving way for a return of a coalition government trend after a decade.

In what would trigger the debate of anti-incumbency setting in, Modi's BJP could manage to get to 240 while NDA touched 291, a comfortable figure to run the government but at the mercy of regional parties like.

As a slew of exit polls that gave a clear majority to Modi proved wrong, even in the win of the NDA, the celebrations are louder in the  INDIA Bloc after they bagged a higher than expected number of seats.

Though several political pundits, opinion and exit polls had almost written off the Opposition, Congress (99 seats) led INDIA comprising several key regional players in offering a close contest to the incumbent.