BJP's 12/12 Oath In Gujarat As It Readies For Historic Win: 10 Points

The Congress, holder of the state's 149-seat record of 1985, posted its poorest results in the state, winning only 17 seats -- less than a quarter of the 77 seats it won in 2017. AAP, despite its strong campaign, won only five seats.

Union minister Amit Shah has said Bhupendra Patel will continue as the Chief Minister of Gujarat and will take oath on Monday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who led more than 30 rallies in his home state in the run-up to the elections -- also led his party's celebrations at the Delhi headquarters.  

Thanking the people of Gujarat for the massive mandate, PM Modi tweeted that he was "overcome with a lot of emotions". "People blessed politics of development and at the same time expressed a desire that they want this momentum to continue at a greater pace. I bow to Gujarat's Jan Shakti," his tweet read.

The BJP, which zoomed past the 140-seat target set by Mr Shah in the early leads, stayed past the 150 mark since mid-morning, vaulting over the Congress's 149-seat record with a seventh term under its belt.

The BJP also set another record – winning a chunk of the 27 seats in the tribal belt, which had been dominated by the Congress since the 1950s. PM Modi said that the BJP has won 24 out of 40 SC/ST seats. In 2017, the BJP could only get eight of the seats, the lion's share of 15 was retained by the Congress.

Part of the reason for the Congress's lacklustre performance was the death of Ahmed Patel, its pointsperson for Gujarat. The party also lost Madhavsinh Solanki, the architect of the 1985 record with its KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) combination. Rahul Gandhi, the party's face, held only two rallies in the state.

Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, which rivalled the BJP in optics during the campaign, fell hugely short of the 90-plus seats Arvind Kejriwal had predicted. But AAP appears anything but disappointed – indicating that despite its high-flown claims, its secret target was geared more towards its national ambitions.

"Aam Aadmi Party is becoming a national party today with the votes of the people of Gujarat," tweeted senior leader Manish Sisodia as celebrations started in the party's Delhi headquarters.

The BJP has been holding Gujarat since 1995. It was the launchpad for PM Modi, who was the Chief Minister of the state for 13 years before getting the country's top job.