Where are India’s ties with the US and China headed in a third Narendra Modi term?

Poorer-than-expected performance by prime minister’s ruling party unlikely to alter joint initiatives between Washington and New Delhi, analysts say

But unresolved border dispute and concerns over China’s risen profile define ‘more complicated’ Sino-Indian relationship

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) gestures at Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi as results come in for the country’s general elections on Tuesday. Photo: dpa

Published: 6:31am, 5 Jun 2024Updated: 3:59am, 6 Jun 2024

India’s general election results on Tuesday delivered an unexpected twist in the ongoing tale of the country’s popular yet polarising Hindu nationalist leader, Narendra Modi, unveiling a reality quite distant from a widely anticipated landslide victory.

With his Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition projected to narrowly secure the required majority to form a government, Modi, the twice-elected leader of the world’s largest democracy, appears poised to return as the country’s top elected official.

Questions swirl as to the implications of the poorer-than-expected performance, with many asking what a weaker Modi means for India’s evolving relationship with the US and for its uneasiness with China, whom America sees as posing a “pacing challenge”.

Even if Modi’s actual clout is not necessarily diminished, the outcome represented “a setback to the massive expectations tied to his indomitable popularity on the ground and abroad”, according to Farwa Aamer of Asia Society, a New York think tank.