SINGAPORE, June 4 (Reuters) - Indian stocks were poised

to hit a record high while the rupee was steady as votes were

being counted in the world's largest election on Tuesday, with

Prime Minister Narendra Modi widely expected to score a decisive

mandate and a rare third term.

Exit polls have projected a big win for Modi, leading to

markets soaring to all-time highs on Monday as investors were

buoyed by expectations of sustained economic growth.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance raced to early

leads, pulling ahead in more than 155 seats of the total 543 in

the lower house of parliament. Early trends on TV channels

showed the opposition INDIA alliance leading in more than 60

seats.

On Tuesday, NIFTY 50 index futures was at 23,495.50

points, according to NSE International Exchange data, and was

looking at scaling a record high for the second straight

session.

The Nifty index ended up 3.25% at 23,263.90 points

on Monday after touching a record high of 23,338.70 in the wake

of exit polls. The BSE index closed up 3.39% at

76,468.78 points on Monday, just off its lifetime peak of

76,738.89 hit earlier.

The benchmark indexes have grown by a little more than three

times in value since Modi became prime minister in May 2014.

Early trade in the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market

pointed to a slightly firmer rupee on Tuesday. In

the spot NDF market the rupee traded at 83.1000 to the dollar,

against a close of 83.1425 in the spot foreign exchange

market on Monday. The rupee rose 0.4% on Monday.

"Markets have rallied around the expected election results

and it is very hard not to be an optimist on India," said Vivek

Bhutoria, portfolio manager for emerging market equities at

Federated Hermes.

"Policies are being put in place to attract investments and

the realignment of the global supply chain is going to benefit

India over time. We are already starting to see some benefits in

terms of electronics and chemical exports."

Foreigners, who poured a net $20.7 billion into Indian

equities last year but had pulled back ahead of the election,

are widely expected to turn buyers.

They bought shares worth a net 68.51 billion rupees ($824.4

million) on Monday, while domestic institutional investors

purchased 19.14 billion rupees in stocks, based on provisional

exchange data.

Investors expect the Modi government to continue focusing on

turning the country into a manufacturing hub - a project that

has courted foreign companies including Apple ( AAPL ) and Tesla

to set up production as they diversify beyond China.

"India is all about infrastructure," said Steve Lawrence,

chief investment officer at Balfour Capital, who manages 350

million euros across different funds.

"It's all about infrastructure investments; roads and

electricity. With the type of technology that they have, you

could see a tremendous amount of growth."