Celebrations outside the BJP office in Mumbai
The BJP will be the single largest party in Maharashtra, but will need an ally to form government in the state. In Haryana, it needs no help at all and is heading towards a comfortable majority.
Here are the latest developments:
The party was ahead in 112 of Maharashtra's 288 assembly seats a little after noon on Sunday. It will fall well short of the halfway mark at 145 and there is much speculation on whether it will bridge the gap with help from the Shiv Sena, its ally in Maharashtra till last month.
In Haryana, the BJP is ahead in 51 of the 90 seats and is set to script history; it has never been in government in Haryana on its own.
"People have voted for good governance... They have rejected Congress... It's a positive mandate," said the BJP's Prakash Javadekar.
He said the BJP's parliamentary board, its highest decision-making body, would meet at 4 pm this evening. "I'm confident that the BJP will form the next government in Maharashtra and the chief minister will be from the party," said state unit chief Devendra Fadnavis after a meeting of party leaders in Mumbai to assess the next steps.
Sources said the BJP is not in a hurry to enter negotiations with the Shiv Sena, which is still adamant that it must have the chief minister's post in any coalition government. The BJP is clear it will give the state the next chief minister.
Mr Javadekar said it was for the Shiv Sena to make a move towards reconciliation. Mr Fadnavis, seen as a front runner to be chief minister, had earlier said, "The Shiv Sena is not our opponent, they will always be friends."
The BJP is also watching the situation closely, the sources said, as some Shiv Sena leaders talked about the possibility of cobbling together an alliance with the NCP, with external support from the Congress.
After ruling both states for years, the Congress is decimated. It is in a tussle with the NCP for the third and fourth place in Maharashtra. They had split last month too, an hour after the BJP and Shiv Sena did.
The break-ups turned the Maharashtra election into a four-cornered contest, resulting in the fragmented verdict. The fifth, Raj Thackeray's MNS will barely manage half a dozen seats, according to the latest trends.
In Haryana, the Congress will have to settle for number 3 with OP Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal or INLD for second place. 47-year-old Captain Abhimanyu of the BJP is being talked about as a chief ministerial probable.
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