REUTERSA booth-level officer helps a woman verify her name in the voting list outside a polling station during the state assembly elections, in Karnal, in the northern state of Haryana, India, October 5, 2024. REUTERSIndia's ruling party is projected to have lost two key provincial elections to the main opposition Congress party and its allies, exit polls showed, suggesting another setback after the party fared poorly in national elections. Local media reported that Congress had a clear advantage in exit polls in the northern state of Haryana, indicating an end to a decade of rule by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. The exit polls had projected Modi's BJP would win a large majority in the general election in June, but it fell short and had to depend on regional parties to secure a majority and form a coalition government. It is India's only Muslim-majority territory and has been at the centre of a dispute with neighbouring Pakistan since 1947.
