Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to return for a record-equalling third term in office with the BJP-led NDA alliance set to get a thumping majority piping the combined opposition's INDIA Bloc, according to the exit poll results after the seventh and final phase of polling in the country on Saturday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can garner around 350 or more seats while the  INDIA bloc led by the united opposition is likely to get 125 to 150 seats, the exit polls indicate.

Amid a slogan to win over 400 seats in the 543-member Parliament, the exit polls give a massive mandate for a third Modi term.

According to the Republic-PMARQ poll, NDA will win 359 seats and INDIA bloc around 154 followed by 30 by others, while Republic-Matrize poll projects upto 368 seats for the saffron bloc.

Matrize project said the NDA is likely to get 353-368 seats while the INDIA bloc will get 118-133 seats. Others will get 43-48 seats. 

Exit poll by India News-D-Dynamics projected 371 seats for the Modi-led BJP and NDA alliance.

NDTV India-Jan Ki Baat has suggested 362-392 seats for the BJP-led NDA and between 141 and 161 seats for the INDIA bloc.

Overall, all the pollsters predicted a return of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, winning over 350 seats.

The 44-day-long election process to elect a new parliament came to an end on Saturday.

Millions of voters stood in queues across the country in all seven phases to cast their ballots in the world’s biggest democratic exercise spread  from April 19 to June 1.

The vote is seen as a referendum on Modi’s policies on Hindu pride, economy, foreign relations, vaccination during the pandemic and the handling of the Kashmir insurgency by unleashing a spate of developmental projects in the region after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.

The construction and inauguration of the Ram Temple heartland state Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya, is also seen as a fulfillment of a promise of many decades to build a temple to Lord Ram in his birthplace.