Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was heading for a landslide victory in his home state of Gujarat on Thursday, a big boost for the Hindu nationalist party ahead of general elections scheduled for 2024.
The western industrial state is a stronghold of the BJP, which has not lost state assembly elections since 1995. Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister for 13 years before becoming prime minister in 2014.
The BJP led more than 80% of the seats out of 182 in the early vote count and was on track for a more significant majority than in 2017 when it won 99 seats in the last state assembly election.
The party was also set to surpass its best results in Gujarat when it won 127 seats in 2002.
Modi remains hugely popular in the country, partly due to economic growth and his strong base among India’s Hindu-majority population, despite criticism pointing to rising inflation, unemployment and growing religious polarization.
He is considering a third term as prime minister in 2024 and campaigned extensively across the state in the run up to the Gujarat vote.
The main opposition to the BJP in Gujarat came from the Indian National Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which emerged in 2012 out of an anti-corruption movement.
The 137-year-old Congress party led by 26 seats, well down from the 77 seats it won in 2017, while the AAP led by nine seats, having won none the last time.
In another election in the small northern state of Himachal Pradesh, the BJP hoped to take advantage of Modi’s aggressive campaign to retain power. The BJP and the congresses were neck-and-neck over seats in the 68-seat assembly.
Victories in both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will be a welcome boost for the BJP, which lost control of the municipal corporation in the national capital Delhi to the AAP, according to results announced on Wednesday.