New Delhi: The Election Commission of India has declared the results for 542 out of 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clinching 240 seats and the Congress securing 99.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to make history by forming the government for a third consecutive term, leading the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a majority in the Lok Sabha.
Although the BJP fell short of the 272-majority mark, it garnered crucial support from key allies like N. Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)). With their combined strength, along with other alliance partners, the NDA surpassed the halfway mark.
While the Lok Sabha has 543 members, counting was held for 542 seats after the BJP's Surat candidate Mukesh Dalal was elected unopposed.
The Congress, part of the opposition INDIA bloc, secured 99 seats, making significant gains in Rajasthan and Haryana at the BJP's expense.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party led the INDIA bloc's spirits with 37 seats, while the Trinamool Congress (TMC) secured 29 seats in West Bengal, an increase from its 2019 tally.
Despite the NDA's victory, the results didn't match the landslide projected by exit polls.
The 2024 elections, conducted from April 19 to June 1 in seven phases, saw a staggering 640 million votes cast, making it the world's largest democratic exercise.
https://results.eci.gov.in/PcResultGenJune2024/index.htm
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).