The Latest | India counts votes from a mega-election seen as a referendum on Modi

NEW DELHI — India began counting the votes in a staggered manner on Tuesday, six week election This was seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power and was expected to give him a third term.

Exit polls by major television channels have projected a comfortable victory for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies across a broad spectrum. opposition alliance led by Congress party and his main campaign leader, Rahul Gandhi.

Almost 970 million people (more than 10% of the world’s population) had the right to vote and participation averaged 66%, according to official data. Counting at counting centers in 543 electoral districts could last well into the night before final results are announced, although substantial clues are likely to emerge before then.

At the moment:

— What to know while votes are counted

– The biggest in the world choicein pictures

— Voting ended Saturday in the elections that referendum on Modi’s decade in power

– TO Scorching heat wave kills 14 in India before the final voting phase

— Modi highlights India’s booming economybut many feel abandoned.

Here’s the latest:

Government employees are recounting some 642 million votes cast in India’s elections in various locations across the country. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said they were starting with postal ballots and would then move on to combining votes from India’s electronic voting machines.

The process is expected to conclude by the end of the day Tuesday.

India has nearly 970 million eligible voters and votes were cast at more than one million polling stations staggered over the past six weeks.

That led to the final phase of India’s hottest season, with temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country, and Kumar said election officials learned a valuable lesson.

“We should have completed the elections at least a month earlier,” he said before the recount began. “We shouldn’t have let it stay so hot.”

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