Indian Prime Minister's first press conference in five years

• Narendra Modi seeking re-election held his first press conference five years after he took over.
• This is first time the Indian Prime Minister took questions from reporters on the ground.
• He has faced severe criticism for avoiding a large section of the country's press while being more active on social media.

Narendra Modi took charge as India's Prime Minister in May 2014 but it took him another five years to take questions from reporters on the ground.

"It will happen after a long time in the country, our government will come to power with an absolute majority for the second consecutive time," Modi said in his address.

On May 17, Modi met the press for the first time in a publicly televised conference ahead of the last phase of polling on Sunday. He has used social media to effectively interact with his fans, he has given a bunch of interviews to individual media houses. In most cases, the interviews were criticised for not holding the government accountable for many of its lapses.

However, when it came to taking questions, it was the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, who answered all the reporters' questions. He reiterated confidently that the party will manage to garner more than 300 seats in the 543-strong Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian Parliament.