Modi's party wins Maharashtra state polls, loses Jharkhand

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling alliance won an election in Maharashtra by a wide margin, signaling policy continuity in a state which houses most of India’s billionaires and is home to some of the country’s biggest investments.

The Mahayuti coalition, led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, is ahead with 228 seats of the 288-member legislative assembly, according to the Election Commission of India. The Indian National Congress-led alliance has the advantage in just 47 seats, halting a momentum they built during national elections.

The margins are wide enough for the elections to be called even as the final stages of counting are in progress.

“Development wins! Good governance wins! United we will soar even higher!” Modi said in a post on X on Saturday.

A separate Congress alliance in Jharkhand is leading in 50 seats of the 81-member legislative assembly, according to the Election Commission. Modi has conceded in the state.

Exit polls released Wednesday predicted a tight contest in both states, with a slight edge forecast for the BJP alliance in Maharashtra. Mahayuti is now expected to win by a landslide with the main opposition and other smaller regional parties barely scraping by. BJP candidates are in the lead in 90 seats and have had a win declared for 42 more.

“This is the voice of the people, it is the government of the people and it is a government for the best of the people,” Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told reporters Saturday afternoon.

A victory in Maharashtra, which houses the financial capital of Mumbai, is expected to give a boost to stock markets which had already made gains on Friday in anticipation of the results. It suggests Modi remains popular, even though his party lost an outright majority in national polls.

In those elections, more than 20 different parties worked together, shedding ideological differences and pooling resources to take on Modi’s electoral prowess. Since the results in June, four state polls were conducted with the BJP picking up two significant ones.

“The BJP has a reasonably fixed vote share which it will get,” said Neelanjan Sircar, an associate professor at Ahmedabad University. Also, “we are seeing local seat level factions taking on an importance.”

Maharashtra contributes over 10% of India’s gross domestic product, with Mumbai home to companies such as Reliance Industries Ltd. and Tata Group, the country’s two main stock markets, and the Hindi film industry. The state’s economic reputation, however, is at risk of being tarnished by growing farmer distress and high unemployment.

Modi and his party have introduced a series of social welfare programs, including cash handouts to women and have promised further subsidies.

The state is also one of the biggest recipients of foreign investment and BJP’s win will calm investors and allow ambitious development projects already in the works to continue.

Billionaire Gautam Adani aims to revamp one of Asia’s biggest slums, but his $3 billion plan to convert 620 acres (251 hectares) of Dharavi into a glitzy urban hub had become a political hot potato. The opposition has repeatedly vowed to cancel the project during campaigning.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who won both parliamentary seats he contested in June, chose to vacate his seat in Wayanad, Kerala. His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is running in the by-election there in her first political match for the Congress party, winning the seat with a margin of more than 410,000 votes.