There will be no avoiding Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party in India in the future either.

With sweeping victories in a series of regional elections, the 71-year-old politician's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has consolidated power two years ahead of the national elections.

Especially in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, which also has the largest number of MPs in the national parliament, hardliner Yogi Adityanath was re-elected chief minister (head of government) after the count on Thursday, according to preliminary results.

Till Fähnders

Political correspondent for Southeast Asia.

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Modi and the BJP are now "out of competition," wrote the well-known intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the newspaper "The Indian Express" after the governing party had also won in the states of Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.

The Hindu monk Adityanath is thus expanding his position as a possible successor to Modi.

Only in the northern Indian state of Punjab was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which previously only governed in Delhi, able to assert itself against the BJP.

She managed a landslide victory there.

"Politics of poison, hate and prejudice"

In his comment, Mehta attributed the results, among other things, to a continued high level of confidence in Modi's leadership.

Modi gives a picture of unity with his party.

According to Mehta, the rise of Hindu nationalists has resulted in "a monumental shift in Indian politics over the past decade."

This brought the commentator to the increasingly difficult situation of religious minorities, the growing intolerance and authoritarian tendencies of the BJP and its Hindu nationalist allies in India.

It should be something to think about when "a policy of poison, hate, prejudice, violence, repression and deceit" does not disqualify a party from the outset, Mehta wrote.

The country's "moral compass" has been irretrievably lost.

Before the regional elections, there had been attacks on Muslims and Christians in various states.

Critics accuse the Hindu nationalists of dividing society along religions and wanting to transform India from a pluralistic democracy into a Hindu state.

In addition, social dissatisfaction is palpable in India, Mehta wrote.

In Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorest states in India, unemployment was a major issue during the election campaign.

Chief Minister Adityanath says he has already achieved a lot in creating new jobs, boosting the economy and maintaining security and order.

Critics, on the other hand, express clear doubts about the reports of success.

Opposition victory in Punjab

The exact consequences of the election results were not yet clear on Thursday.

The parties will now talk, among other things, about possible cooperation in the states.

But the positive trend for the BJP is more than clear.

In the regional elections, in which more than 180 million people cast their votes, only Punjab stood out as the state that voted against the BJP.

The granary in northern India was the starting point for months of peasant protests last year.

Not least with a view to the regional elections, Modi finally pulled the brakes and withdrew the three agricultural laws that the farmers had campaigned against.

The new Chief Minister will be former actor and satirist Bhagwant Mann.

With its victory in Punjab, the AAP becomes a serious supra-regional party with national ambitions.

In his commentary, intellectual Meta draws a parallel between the BJP and AAP, both of which broke out in 2014.

In a way, they represented new forces that did not have the flavor of the “old regime” in India.

What is meant by this is the Indian National Congress, which had shaped the country politically for decades and has now been the big loser in almost all elections for years.

He was represented in Uttar Pradesh by Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of party leader Sonia Gandhi.

The party "humbly" accepts the verdict of the people, her brother Rahul Gandhi said on Twitter.