Voting concluded in 102 constituencies across 21 states and Union Territories in the first phase, with around 62 per cent of the electorate exercising their franchise on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leading the BJP campaign, said that the Congress had already accepted defeat, with the INDIA bloc partners busy fighting one another. He also advised his rivals to work hard for democracy even though they might lose the elections.

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"To all the workers and leaders of other parties, even if you feel that you are going to lose the elections and why should we work hard -- I want to say work hard for democracy,” PM Modi said at an election rally in Maharashtra’s Nanded on Saturday.

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Even as the opposition saw the presence of a strong anti-incumbency factor in the first phase, Modi said BJP's booth level analysis had revealed the people had voted en masse for the party.

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"Yesterday, the first phase of polling concluded and as per the booth-level analysis and the information that we have received, it was clearly in favour of the NDA,” Modi said.

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But the mood in the opposition camp remained upbeat. “Ignore what the BJP leaders are stating; the trend is clearly against them,” they said.

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Former union minister and the senior Congress leader Vilas Muttemwar said the BJP would lose all the five seats – Ramtek, Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur and Chandrapur -- in Maharashtra that went to the polls on Friday. Union minister Nitin Gadkari, aiming for a hat-trick of victories in Nagpur, would struggle while senior Maharashtra minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, who contested from Chandrapur, would be defeated, he predicted.

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"Modi has been avoiding addressing the real issues like unemployment and price rise. The BJP's campaign is negative and will work against Modi's aspirations for a third term,” he said.

Indeed, BJP has found the going tough on several fronts and even the Ram temple in Ayodhya seems to have had little effect on the voters. If the Jats in Rajasthan, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh are unhappy with the party, Kshatriyas in Gujarat are upset over the statement allegedly made against them by Union minister Parshottam Rupala.

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Meanwhile, the BJP's opposition to eating fish during Hindu festivals has riled the voters in West Bengal,and could  hurt the party's hopes of winning 20 out of the 42 seats from the state.

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As per the opposition's assessment after the first phase, the BJP's seats would go down across the Hindi belt barring Uttar Pradesh. In Bihar, the BJP does not know whether the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is an asset or a liability with the leader declining to address election meetings jointly with the prime minister, they said.

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Reports from Rajasthan suggest that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Union ministers Bhupendra Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat would have a hard time retaining their seats.

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In Maharashtra, NCP founder Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray have been drawing good crowds, with the former claiming a big success for the Maha Vikas Aghadi of opposition parties.

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Meanwhile, in a departure from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission did not officially release details of the numbers of EVMs and VVPATs used and the percentage of them replaced during polling. According to a senior EC official, the replacement rate was below one percent.