Narendra Modi, the opposition candidate, will serve as the next prime minister in India, according to early reports from Reuters.
Modi won the election as part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which reacted to the victory with celebrations across the region.
Modi won the office of prime minister with more than six times the seats of his closest rival. This is the largest margin of victory for any leader since the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. The assassination helped her son reach office that year. India has been run by coalitions since 1989.
There are 543 seats in parliament, with the BJP winning 278 of them. Indian markets soared with the news of Modi’s win. The rupee broke below 59 to the United States dollar, with is an 11-month high. India’s benchmark stock index jumped 6 percent to another record high.
“He can afford to have a smaller but stronger cabinet, that means a far more decisive government. He has been saying less government and more governance, we are really likely to see that,” said Navneet Munot, Chief Investment Officer at SBI Funds management in Mumbai.
The country is suffering through its worst economic downturn since the 1980s and is dealing with high inflation.
“It’s important to be realistic about how quickly they can instigate change. It takes time to, number one, get economic reforms through the political machinery, and number two, it also takes a while before economic reforms actually have a positive impact,” said Leif Eskesen, an economist at HSBC in Singapore.