Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party won a landslide victory in India’s most important battleground state on Saturday, in a personal triumph that will strengthen his claim to a second term as national leader.

Wresting control of Uttar Pradesh is a ringing endorsement of Modi’s stewardship of Asia’s third-largest economy after his high-risk decision last November to scrap high-value banknotes worth 86 percent of the cash in circulation.

The Election Commission of India said Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won a clear majority, according to partial results. The BJP was on course to win 309 of 403 seats in the state assembly, the biggest majority for any party in the state since 1980.

Almost four in ten voters backed Modi’s party, the election commission said as it tallied the last votes, close to the party’s vote share in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 national election when it won the biggest national majority in three decades.

“I give my heartfelt thanks to the people of Uttar Pradesh. This is a historic victory for the BJP; a victory for development and good governance,” Modi told his 28 million followers on Twitter.

Source :Al Arabiya