NEW DELHI: India's ruling party suffered stinging election defeats in three stronghold states, results showed yesterday, in a big blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi before national polls in 2019. The votes held earlier this month and in November were seen as a dress rehearsal for next year when Modi will likely go head-to-head with a emboldened Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party for a second term. "We accept the people's mandate with humility," Modi said late yesterday on Twitter. "I thank the people of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for giving us the opportunity to serve these states. The BJP governments in these states worked tirelessly for the welfare of the people."

"We defeated the BJP today, we will defeat them in 2019 too," Indian media quoted Gandhi as saying. "Mr Modi sold a vision to the country five years ago. India had the patience to give them five years. But they have failed." In both the central state of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in the west, the chief ministers from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) conceded defeat, while in Madhya Pradesh the outcome was on a knife-edge.

In Chhattisgarh, ruled by the BJP for 15 years, initial results showed the BJP winning just 16 seats, down from 49 in the outgoing parliament, trailing Congress on 68 in the 90-seat state parliament. Congress also trounced the BJP in Rajasthan, governed since 2013 by the BJP's Vasundhara Raje, an unpopular local princess, winning 99 seats ahead of the BJP on 73 - 89 fewer than in the last election. Television footage showed jubilant Congress workers bursting firecrackers and dancing at regional party offices in both states.

In neighboring Madhya Pradesh, the BJP also suffered from voter fatigue after 15 years in office, with Congress set to be two seats short of a majority and five ahead of the BJP. In two other smaller states also releasing results yesterday, Telangana in the south and remote Mizoram in the northeast, regional parties looked to be leading. Congress's five-time Mizoram chief minister Lal Thanhawla was routed by the regional Mizo National Front, a BJP ally. In Telangana, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi won handsomely - at the expense of Congress.

But it was Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh that mattered most for the Hindu nationalist BJP, which swept to power nationally under Modi in 2014. They form part of the "Hindi Belt" or "Cow Belt" region of around 475 million people - more than the United States, Canada and Mexico combined - where the rightwing BJP has its core support base. Before the recent five elections, the BJP ruled 19 out of 29 Indian states either outright or in alliance with local parties. Congress rules just two states, including one in partnership.

But the latest results are a blow to the image of Modi as an invincible vote-winner, and puts the 68-year-old on the back foot months before he seeks a second term in office. It also strengthen 48-year-old Gandhi - scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty - with Congress having lost more than a dozen states to the BJP since Modi took office in 2014. The results could also help his party cobble together a grand alliance of smaller parties to take on the BJP next year, with Gandhi at its head. "The message (from voters) is very clear. (Modi) needs to address the main issues of employment, corruption, and damage to economic structures," Gandhi said yesterday.

Analysts have linked the BJP's apparent dwindling support to growing rural distress and unemployment. Nearly 55 percent of India's 1.25-billion population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, and farmers form an important voting bloc for parties. "The verdict is the cumulative result of the issues faced by people in these states," Gurpreet Mahajan, a political scientist at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University told AFP. "Victory and defeat are an integral part of life," Modi said in a second tweet. "Today's results will further our resolve to serve people and work even harder for the development of India." - AFP