Rightwinger Narendra Modi won India’s election by a landslide yesterday, according to preliminary results that showed his party easily driving out the long-dominant Congress party.

It was the most commanding election victory India has seen in more than a quarter of a century and the first outright majority in 30 years.

The Hindu chauvinist BJP seemed to be on course for 279 seats in the lower house of parliament — clear of the 272 needed for a simple majority.

The Congress party conceded defeat just hours into the count.

“We are accepting the people’s verdict in all humility,” party spokesman Shakil Ahmed said.

At BJP headquarters in New Delhi, party workers were handing out sweets, setting off fireworks and dancing in the streets.

There was a record turnout, with 66.38 per cent of India’s 814 million voters casting ballots during the six-week contest, which began on April 7 and was held in stages across the country. Turnout in the 2009 general election was 58.13 per cent.

Mr Modi was elected three times as chief minister in Gujarat state, but was boycotted by the US and European powers for a decade over religious riots in Gujarat in 2002 that left around 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

The BJP manifesto includes a pledge to build a temple to honour the Hindu god Ram at the site of a former mosque in northern India, a religious flashpoint that sparked deadly rioting in 1992.