New Delhi
CNN
 — 

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scored a landslide election win in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s house state of Gujarat on Thursday, in a lift for the chief and his Hindu-nationalist occasion forward of the 2024 basic election.

The BJP took 156 of 182 whole seats within the Gujarat state meeting following voting earlier this month, marking the occasion’s best-ever efficiency within the state, a longtime BJP stronghold.

The primary opposition Indian National Congress gained 17 seats, whereas the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took 5.

The election – and the margin of victory – within the state of greater than 60 million has been carefully watched as a take a look at of Modi’s recognition forward of India’s subsequent basic election, when he’s anticipated to hunt a 3rd time period.

In a remark posted to Twitter Thursday night, the Prime Minister thanked the individuals of Gujarat and stated he was “overcome with a lot of emotions” to see the outcomes.

“People blessed politics of development and at the same time expressed a desire that they want this momentum to continue at a greater pace,” Modi wrote.

In one other state election within the northern area of Himachal Pradesh, Congress gained 40 out of the 68 whole meeting seats and can now type a authorities. The BJP gained 25 seats and three went to impartial candidates, with outcomes from the state of round 6 million additionally introduced Thursday.

Despite what critics say are financial headwinds and rising non secular intolerance in India below Modi, he maintains sturdy assist among the many nation’s Hindu majority.

He campaigned extensively within the lead-up to the election in Gujarat, the place the BJP has dominated for greater than 1 / 4 century. Modi led the state as chief minister for greater than a decade earlier than coming to energy as Prime Minister in 2014.

Modi was chief minister throughout 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots within the state, which led to the deaths of greater than 1,000 individuals, most of them Muslims.