i'm samira hussain. i'm arunoday mukharji. well, india hasjust had a mammoth election. 6a2 million people voted over a month and a half. and these elections are important because whatever happens here has global ramifications. and the results, they were surprising. narendra modi will keep his job as prime minister. but the intractable leader, well, he now depends on other parties to back him up. actually, arunoday, you broke down the numbers. let's take a look. the world's largest democratic exercise. elections in a country of 1.4 billion, done and dusted. here's everything you need to know about the results. the bjp won the most number of seats, 240, but it's still not the victory narendra modi was hoping for. he has 63 less seats than what the bjp won in the last election, and less than 272 that is needed to have a majority, which means he is not the final word on politics or policy, and will have to rely on unpredictable alliance partners and establish a consensus. other things didn't go as anticipated. the state which was supposed to stand by the bjp didn't. uttar pradesh, which sends 80 lawmakers to the parliament, the maximum, is the state where the bjp suffered heavy losses. from a tally of 62, it is now down to 33. the bjp alliance may be forming the government, but the growth in the opposition was the real surprise. over 2,000 parties came together to take on the bjp and that has clearly worked. the opposition congress emerging as the single largest party, increasing their seats from 52 to 99. so notjust raising their numbers, but also expectations that they now must live up to. i want to pick up on what arunoday was talking about. shashi tharoor, you havejust won your fourth consecutive run for a member of parliament from the southern state of kerala. i'm wondering, what do you think your party did so well nationally? 0h, lots of factors. i think that people were beginning to get quite tired of the ten years of bjp misrule. there was an awful lot of arrogance. people don't like being taken for granted and that was happening throughout the country. we also had a style of governance that india has not been accustomed to, where the prime minister would essentially take decisions that didn't involve consulting anybody, not even his own cabinet or ministers. demonetisation, practically a whim. finance minister, completely in the dark. the stringent lockdown during covid, a few hours' notice. not even the chief ministers who had to implement it were told in advance. everyone finds out from the television but that kind of thing has to end. and what's happened now is that the voters have ensured that mr modi has to have partners in his government who he'll have to consult before he takes decisions like this in future. so the big question, of course, is what is the opposition going to do? are you guys going to try and form a government? well, look, right now i think the numbers are with the bjp, not only because the bjp is the largest single party, but because they had a pre—poll alliance, all of whom have stuck together with them. and that pushes them well over the majority mark. i think the president would understandably be justified in allowing them to form the government. the question we'll have to be attentive to is, number one, we'll have to be a very robust opposition in parliament. we really will have to stand up for the values that we've been voted to represent. equally, we will have to be attentive to what's happening inside the bjp and the government, because it's entirely possible that this rather motley crew of allies may not stick together. and if the government does fall, we have to be ready to offer an alternative. well, very, very quickly. i want to know what kind of opposition will congress look like? well, i think it's going to be both a constructive and a firm opposition. we can't afford to be taken for granted, as the government did when we were just 52, as we were in the last parliament. we're now over 100, and we are going to make sure that our voice is heard. more important, ourallies bring us to 234 in the india alliance, and that's a substantial number in a parliament of 543. it's not much smaller than the bjp, and therefore they really will want to consult. that used to be the style of parliament. it used to be said of congress party, parliamentary affairs ministers, that they spend more time in the opposition benches than on their own. the bjp, on the other hand, would just stay on their side and issue diktats. those days are over and they have to realise it. shashi tharoor, it was such a pleasure to have you here. thank you so much forjoining us. now, look, these elections were very much also all about the prime minister. so, really, this loss is not just about seats, but it's really about narendra modi, who basically lost face. a record third term in power. a victory, all right, but not the verdict narendra modi was hoping for. with no majority, the result, a personal blow to the man with a record of scoring absolute majority in elections, both as chief minister of gujarat state and then as prime minister. for ten years, narendra modi dominated indian politics. the bjp repeatedly fighting elections on his name, a brand the party showcases. he's plastered on hoardings across india. welfare schemes are named after him to connect him to the voter and show him as the man who delivered them. and he did deliver, big infrastructure projects, cash benefits and housing to the poor, schemes further trumpeted by a largely subservient indian national media, helping build up brand modi. to his hindu nationalist vote base, mr modi delivered on key manifesto promises, whether it was revoking the autonomy of indian administered kashmir or implementing a controversial citizenship law. ayodhya was an earlier election promise he made good on, inaugurating a temple dedicated to the hindu god, ram, in the city, at the same spot where a 16th century mosque once stood. but it's failed to resonate — the bjp even losing the seat where the temple was built. despite a campaign that turned to divisive politics, what seems to have mattered more were problems like unemployment and rising prices, not religion. issues the opposition india alliance managed to capitalise on, and they're now back to occupying a larger space in the indian parliament. so i want to pick up on some of the things that were said in that piece right now. shazia ilmi, you're a spokesperson with the bjp. i'm wondering first, what do you think went wrong with the modi campaign? i think this is a historic win for our government, and this is a third time around that narendra modi has won. it's absolutely historic and we have had some misses. but we are large, single, largest party and the biggest alliance and it's after years that we have had... right, but... a party come back to power for the third consecutive time, right? that's great. but remember, this is the first time that he's ever going to have to deal with a minority, he's never had, he's always won with majorities. why did he lose his majority? well, i think we have, we've always been in this alliance. this is a pre—poll alliance with tdp and with thejdu, and they have reiterated their support. we all believe in a transformation point here and working towards a developed india. which is a developed nation. and we stand steadfast together on that bit. and i don't think we'll have any problems. it's the smoothest transition. ours is the single largest party. it's a historic win. and india will continue to grow with this great trajectory that we are on. we'll do extremely well, we're the fifth largest economy. we want it to be the third largest economy. so now, prime minister narendra modi has never... i know it's not very good news for bbc, but it's very good news for india! so prime minister modi has never had to deal with a coalition government. how will he have to change his leadership style? no, i think he'll continue with his leadership and his skills because he has led the nda... but he has to play nice. no, he's always played nice. he's made decisions on his own. that's bbc... demonetisation. he took no consultation. no. but it has worked very well for our economy and our country. why do you think india is doing so well? do you think india is doing well? do you wonder why india is the fifth largest economy? i'm wondering why there's 8% unemployment. but do you also wonder why the 25, which is 250 million extremely poor people being lifted out of poverty? do you also talk about the fact that 800 million people are being fed and... we could debate... we will not debate it real figures... there's no point debating... it's still a legitimate question to ask, which is what kind of... it a legitimate answer to give that india has done so well in terms of where it stands internationally, where it stands in terms of his domestic policy, how it's dealt with minorities, particularly muslims, how the drop out rate for muslim girls has come down, how the housing schemes and the welfare schemes, muslims have benefited. thank you very much for your time. i really appreciate that. arunoday, back to you. well, given the lack of majority and the reliance on other parties who may have divergent views, it may not be as smooth as it was before for the bjp. so here's more on the challenges ahead for the new modi government. india's graduates, fresh from college, are struggling to find jobs. in 2022, unemployment among educated youth doubled from 35% to 65%. inequality has widened to a 100—year high. so has the development marketed by the government been development for all? so, if india still wants to become the third largest economy by 2027, robust policies have to be in place. but in a coalition government with different priorities, consensus is hard. now a big challenge for a politician like narendra modi, who's always had an absolute majority and never headed a coalition government, is having to rely on alliance partners, but it's a matter of political survival and staying in power. well, that is really the question to answer. and looking ahead, let's get in mr yogendra yadav, political analyst — good to see you. and also, professor arun kumar, economist, to discuss some of those challenges. uh, mr yadav, i'd like to begin with you first. how different do you think is this bjp—led government going to be? is it going to have to tone down a lot of the rhetoric or their attitude that we've seen? arunoday, i must put on record that apart from being a political analyst, i'm part of a civil society coalition which was meant to be opposed to the government and which is pro—democracy. uh, now, to answeryour question, it all depends on whether they learn any lesson. to my mind, this has been notjust a setback to the government. this has actually been a moral, political defeat for the bjp and personal defeat for the prime minister. mind you, this entire election was run as if it was his personal battle. his party actually came much later. it was, frankly, a david—versus—goliath kind of a battle, where david has managed to give a bloody nose to goliath. now, do they learn? i doubt if they would. right. uh, mr modi is not used to coalitions. and may i say, he's not used to democracy. that's going to be tough. and this is the first time he's going to be heading a coalition government. so, consensus will be key, as we've been saying. but, uh, professor kumar, i just want to understand from you, a lot of distress in the economy. there are some good things, of course, but there is a lot of problems, like unemployment and all. do you think, now that there has to be consensus, do you think policy paralysis or fractured policy is a real possibility that could affect the economy? yeah, that's very likely because india consists of two parts — the organised sector and the unorganised sector. the organised sector has been doing well. so you see it in the stock market. you see it in the hustle and bustle, in the capital and other metro cities, but the unorganised sector consisting of agriculture, of micro sectors, they are the ones who've really, you know, borne the brunt of the message that they have declined after demonetisation, gst, nbfc crisis, the, you know, sudden lockdown. so, four big shots, and they employ 94% of the population, and the government doesn't take the data from the unorganised sector because that data comes once in five years. it's not been collected after2015, '16. so, our gdp is overestimated. actually, it's much less. 0ur per—capita income is much less, but that's not shown in the figures. so, in some sense, the unorganised sector is invisiblised in data and in policy. that needs to change. 0k. sorry to cut you off, but some of this distress was also, voiced by a lot of students who we had spoken to earlier on to understand what they feel about the issues that went into these elections. samira spoke to them. yeah. i'm really happy and he going to form the government. and under the leadership of modi, we have seen the development. i am coming from the gujarat. i've seen the development. and what about you? what do you make of the results? i'm happy, very happy, because, |you know, before the elections, | the ruling party was very much arrogant, i would say, - very much arrogant. the body language, everything was very different. _ and after the results came, or the election results - was coming out, you know, it was very visible - that the people of indiaj had voted for a change. what are the most important issues that you think need to be addressed right now? i would say the wound created by the prime minister himselfl in the election rallies and all against the - minority communities. in the whole election rallies, | and the bjp's ideology is also embedded in this polarisation and the communalism. - it must be healed, . these kind of wounds, because for a future, a better country, the coexistence - and the relationship . between the countries like a diverse india, i should be maintained. these results have proved that the people have a lot of say in the democratic and electoral process because, uh, speaking from a perspective of a minority citizen, the kind of atmosphere before the elections, especially after 2019, was, uh, majorly divisive and kind of it focused on the fault lines, which should not be, uh, focused in that sense. i don't see any kind of, uh, division between community, division between caste. there are many, many, many schemes where we don't have any kind of division. do you agree with that? no, i totally disagree - because the kind of division that modi government has created, i think the entire| world knows it. and, you know, when you go on the ground and you see i in terms of employment - and in terms of selection on, you know, policies and, l you know, for the welfare of the public and society. the biggest problem in our country is unemployment, | because most of our most of us are getting educated. _ and we are going, you know, out of our cities, our peoplel are coming out of their- villages and coming to metro cities to study. and get degrees. and the moment they get degrees, it's very difficult to get a job. especially, muslim, dalit and christians. minority communities are being targeted very easily and being neglected very easily. and that's especially in private companies. what do you say to that? i totally don't agree with that fact. every company has their own policy, whom they want to recruit and whom they don't want to recruit and this is not a divisive politics. india has a lot of— contradictions within itself. on one hand, we have. the richest of the richest, and on another hand, . we have such high scales of malnutrition. so, such contradiction needs to be resolved by focusing . on the people coming from the margins. - until we don't focus i on minorities, no issue is going to be resolved. and also, even if india become somewhat dollar economy, - billion dollar economy, if it| doesn't reach the grassroot levels, it's of no i use to the masses. i want to bring in our guest one more time. mr yadav, given that the parties which are currently in alliance with the bjp in the ruling nda coalition, they have a history of having switched sides multiple times. do you give this government a full five years? your projections were the closest for these elections. but no projections for how the governments work. what concerns me more is, you know, for quite some time, india has been seen as competitive authoritarian state, not proper democracy. this election has made competitive part a little higher, authoritarianism, a little lower. so for me, what matters more than whether five years or less is whether india retains a democratic record. very quickly, professor kumar, what needs to be done to fix the problems in the economy? as you said, employment, especially for youth, women, farmers, their distress, micro sectors, 60 million units, their distress, that has to be taken care of. otherwise, we are back to where we were and the government would not then last. professor arun kumar, yogendra yadav, thank you very much for your time here on bbc. so, as you saw, there are challenges on the domestic political front as well as on the economic front, but also on the foreign policy front. overto you, samira. yeah, so we want to be able to kick this conversation forward and look at what this election means for india on the global stage. suhasini, i want to start with you. how does this change india's relationship with its neighbours, in particular india and china — rather pakistan and china. all right. i'll get to pakistan and china. but it's clear that the prime minister wants to put the neighbourhood front and centre. with the swearing in expected on sunday, he's already spoken to the prime ministers of bangladesh, nepal, the president of sri lanka. they're all coming. there's some buzz about perhaps the maldives, as well. bhutan is coming, as well. of course, pakistan and china, which have had perhaps the most tense of relationships with india in the last two terms of mr modi, are not on that invited list. but there is a sense that going into this new government, a, that the prime minister will try to maybe have some kind of a detente with pakistan in terms of perhaps putting the top diplomats back in, perhaps reopening trade at some level. there's a new government in pakistan, as well, a newly elected one there. and with china. the prime minister himself has said, "this is an important relationship." he is a troubled by how tense things have gotten. uh, he's also said that he wants to see an early resolution to the crisis that's been playing out for four years now, whether that's possible without china physically going off the land that they that they have walked into or not, we do expect some kind of a detente with china, as well. well, navtej, i want to move to you, because you were the former ambassador to the united states, the uk and israel, and that's where i want to pick up. you know, india has been pretty silent when it comes to the war in gaza. i'm wondering if, at some point, you're going to have to, or india is going to have to say something, given that, you know, they've said that they're going to be the voice of the global south. but if you look at other members of the global south, like south africa, india, by comparison, has been pretty quiet. i don't think we've been quiet, but i think we haven't really taken the kind of position that south africa took, front and centre, against israel. and the reasons are very clear. we have a very well developed relationship with israel now. and i think in ourfirst reaction, we sort of came down very strongly in favour of, uh, the israeli people because we saw october 7th as an event of terrorism. uh, and thereafter there has been corrections in terms of, you know, as the civilian population, uh, casualties, etc, the lack of humanitarian aid has increased in gaza, that india has made its corrections, both at the un, and as well as statements, at least at the foreign minister level. i don't think now that this is a situation in which india is going to step in suddenly and say, "ok, we are going to sort it out." there are bigger stakeholders there who have not been able to do so. india has its own interests and we'll take care of that. suhasini, i'm wondering now, do you think there's going to be more pressure on india to pick a side when it comes to the war on ukraine? i don't think there's any pressure on india at all. the west has made it clear that they understand india's position as a country of strategic autonomy. uh, they haven't really pushed back when it comes to the sanctions or on india's increasing oil imports from russia or ties with russia. prime minister modi is clearly showing the balance. he spoke to putin first. he spoke to mr biden next. he's going next week for the g7 to italy. he'll go next month to kazakhstan, meet with president putin. president xi jinping, as well, will be there. so you're seeing that a balanced relationship, seems to have fared this government quite well in the past term and is likely to continue. i'm going to give you one last word, but very, very quickly. what's the one thing that you're looking for when it comes to india's foreign policy? i think it's going to be a continuation. we are at a geopolitical sweet spot. we are maximising our gains from every side. and i think that's going to be the line that's going to be continued. well, thank you both very much for coming on to the programme on this very warm day. it's been a long and hot election campaign. and it started in winter. well, if you haven't been watching the last two months, we've broken it down for you in two minutes. thanks so much for coming along for the ride. this is india. drumming shouting and chanting narendra modi! i've come for a run at a parkjust across the street from my hotel. come with me. this entire enclosure is full of exercise equipment and it's completely dedicated to women. sizzling the most raw yet nuanced political conversations in india often happen at these kind of tea stalls. it's the best way to get a pulse of what people are thinking. singing shouting hello there. it's turning more unsettled across the uk for the end of the week. we're picking up low pressure off the atlantic. that's going to bring wind and rain increasingly so across the country during thursday. although we start the day chilly and bright like we have the last few mornings, however, we cut off that arctic airflow, the blue colours, then replace it with something milder for the end of the week. however, that comes with wind and rain all tied in with this frontal system linked to low pressure. before it moves in, though, it's going to be another chilly start to thursday up and down the country. these are towns and city values could be low single digits. again, rural spots. so plenty of sunshine around. chilly. one or two mist patches. rain already getting into northern ireland will spread across the irish sea through the morning, reaching western britain around lunchtime. some of this rain will be quite heavy at times. the winds picking up too, eventually reaching eastern areas. all but north—east scotland and east and south—east england. here it'll stay dry until after dark. 17 or 18 degrees will be the high. that's pretty decent considering the fact there'll be a lack of sunshine. now through thursday night the heavier the rain pushes northwards across scotland and the northern hours elsewhere, it's going to be clearspells, patchy cloud and a few showers. but look at these temperatures. vastly difference how it's been the last few nights. a mild one to come with temperatures in double figures, low teens celsius pretty much across the board. for friday, low pressure sits across the uk, bringing showers or longer spells of rain. longer spells of rain will be affecting the northern half of scotland without weather fronts. elsewhere, it's sunny spells, scattered showers. some of these will be heavy and thundering places, particularly central, southern and western areas. but in between, some good spells of sunshine and that'll lift temperatures up 18 to 20 degrees in the warmest spots. friday night will be very mild again. and as we head into saturday, low pressures withers again, showers or longer spells of rain. some good sunny spells in between, though. if you avoid the showers and stay dry all day, it could be quite pleasant. again, those temperatures into the high teens, closer to the mid—teens across scotland where we have more cloud and rain. our area of low pressure just hang around, though, for part two of the weekend, even into the start of next week. but it could be that southern parts of britain on sunday could see drier, sunnier weather at time with the rain across the north. but there'll be further showers as we head into the start of the new week as well. take care. live from washington, this is bbc news. america's top diplomat tells israel and hamas that it is "time for the haggling to stop" as he pushes for a ceasefire deal. a fleet of russian warships arrive off the coast of cuba, as tensions rise with the west over ukraine. the us special envoy to sudan warns el fasher could fall imminently. hello, i'm sumi somaskanda. thank you forjoining us. a ceasefire plan between israel and hamas remains farfrom a done deal, with the us secretary of state saying hamas has proposed numerous changes to the latest draft for a truce put forward by presidentjoe biden. but senior hamas official osama hamdan has told the bbc that hamas has not put forward new demands and that the group remains committed to a ceasefire. antony blinken said some of the alleged proposed changes were workable, but some went beyond what the group