NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to maintain its hold on the western state of Gujarat despite predictions by many analysts of a close election fight.

By midday Monday, India's Election Commission showed that the BJP was ahead in the counting for 102 seats, well over the 92 seats needed to form a majority government in the 182-seat state assembly. The BJP has ruled the state for two decades, with Modi himself leading it for 10 years.

The main opposition Congress party was leading in 74 seats, a jump from the 61 seats it held previously.

The BJP was also comfortably ahead in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, a state currently led by the Congress party.

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Cheerful BJP leaders flashed victory signs outside Parliament in New Delhi.

Final results were expected Monday evening.

Gujarat voted in two phases on Dec. 9 and 14. Himachal Pradesh voted on Dec. 9.

Modi led his party's campaign, especially in his home state of Gujarat, headlining dozens of election rallies.

The election in Gujarat was bitterly fought, with many analysts calling it the closest fight for Modi and his party. The campaigning was marked by some of the sharpest verbal duels in any recent Indian election, with Modi implying at one point, without presenting any evidence, that the Congress party may have been conniving with rival Pakistan to impact the Gujarat election. It was angrily denied by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Congress party leader.

The Gujarat election was the first real test for new Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the heir to India's most famous political dynasty. Gandhi, 47, was chosen president of the party last week, taking over from his mother, Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress party has been steadily losing ground to the BJP since Modi's party swept to power in national elections in 2014. It has lost a series of state elections over the last three years, winning only in the state of Punjab.

The BJP's election wins come as it gears up for the next national elections slated for 2019.