Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to return to power at the head of a coalition government, with exit polls predicting his Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies will win a majority of seats in India’s parliament.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance will win as many as 306 seats in India’s 543-seat lower house, according to an exit poll from TV channel Times Now.

The opposition Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition will win an estimated 132 seats, exit polls said.

Polls were released on Sunday evening after the last of India’s 900 million registered voters cast ballots in a grueling six-week-long election that started on April 11.

"Conventional wisdom suggests the BJP will return to power, albeit with a less strong showing than in 2014, and many exit polls will reflect that projection," said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson Center. Still, he said "Indian electoral politics are famously unpredictable."

Modi faced criticism early on in the campaign for failing to create jobs for youth and for weak farm prices and the election race was thought to be tightening with the main opposition Congress party gaining ground.

But he rallied his Hindu nationalist base and turned the campaign into a fight for national security after tensions rose with Pakistan and attacked his main rival for being soft on the country’s arch foe.

Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is projected to win 287 seats in the 545-member lower house of parliament followed by 128 for the Congress party-led opposition alliance, CVoter exit poll showed.