NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party and its allies returned to power in the nation’s richest state on Saturday, a boost for the Hindu-nationalist leader after a disappointing general election. In Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance won 233 of 288 seats. The opposition Congress party and its allies won 49 seats in the state elections.

“The Mahayuti government... has achieved undisputed and resounding success,” Eknath Shinde, the state’s chief minister, said on social media platform X. Modi lost his majority in parliamentary elections held between April and June and had to depend on fickle allies to form a government. Last month his party won state elections in the northern state of Haryana. State election wins help political parties boost their numbers in the upper house of parliament, which is key for decision-making.

In the mine-rich eastern Jharkhand state, the ruling regional party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which is in alliance with the Congress-led opposition, won 56 of 81 seats to regain control by defeating the BJP and its allies. Political parties in both states have rolled out a range of measures that they say will benefit farmers and women, both considered critical voting blocks.

Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi from Congress party, the 52-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, is set to make her debut in parliament after winning the race against a Communist Party candidate by a huge margin of over 400,000 votes in the Wayanad seat in southern Kerala state. She contested a special election after her brother Rahul, who was elected in two constituencies in June, had to vacate one. Her mother Sonia Gandhi is already in parliament. — Agencies