Modi eyes triumph as India counts epic vote

Vote counting was underway in India's election Tuesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi all but assured a triumph for his Hindu nationalist agenda that has thrown the opposition into disarray and deepened concerns for minority rights.

Early figures showed Modi on track to win another parliamentary majority after a six-week-long election that saw 642 million people vote in seven stages across the world's most populous country.

Modi, 73, said at the weekend he was confident that "the people of India have voted in record numbers" to re-elect his government, a decade after he first became prime minister.

With more than a quarter of votes counted by midday, election commission figures showed Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies leading in at least 281 seats, with 272 seats needed for a parliamentary majority.

Modi's opponents have struggled to counter the BJP's well-oiled and well-funded campaign juggernaut, and have been hamstrung by what they say are politically motivated criminal cases aimed at hobbling challengers.

US think tank Freedom House said this year that the BJP had "increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents".

Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the capital Delhi and a key leader in an alliance formed to compete against Modi, returned to jail on Sunday.

Kejriwal, 55, was detained in March over a long-running corruption probe, but was later released and allowed to campaign as long as he returned to custody once voting ended.

"When power becomes dictatorship, then jail becomes a responsibility," Kejriwal said before surrendering himself, vowing to continue "fighting" from behind bars.

Many of India's 200 million-plus Muslim minority are...