New Delhi (CNN) In purely electoral terms, it is an extraordinary achievement. Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have won a clear victory in India's national elections.

Final results are still outstanding, but Modi's BJP have currently won 297 seats, putting them well beyond the 272 threshold needed to form a government. Modi has been given a second term mandate that's larger than the one he secured in 2014 , when he first became Prime Minister.

Back then, the result was seen by many Indian observers as a one-off: An energetic BJP campaign, a mix of dog-whistles to mobilize the party's hardline Hindu base and economic promises for aspirational Indians, earned Modi the biggest parliamentary majority for any single Indian party in thirty years.

At the time, India was ruled by a coalition government led by the Congress, the grand old party of India's independence movement. Long seen as the natural party of government, it limped into parliament with just 44 seats.

In the days and years after that contest, many polling experts , political commentators and others who talk about these things outside elections often argued that, even if Modi won a second term, he would have to rely on a reduced parliamentary majority. Surely, they reasoned, the laws of gravity would operate on the 2014 tally.

Read More