“People have rejected the anti-development mentality and have defeated forces who were out to defame Gujarat. This verdict will uproot several old beliefs, that it is not possible to win elections on the development agenda, that good governance is bad politics,” Modi said.

Though Modi patted himself for his development agenda, seven of his ministers lost the elections, including I K Jadeja (Urban Development and Roads and Building), Kaushik Patel (Revenue) and Bhupendrasinh Chudasma (Agriculture).

Modi won by about 87,000 votes from the Maninagar constituency in Ahmedabad, defeating Congress candidate and Union Minister of State Dinsha Patel.

The BJP wrested 26 seats from the Congress in the Saurashtra/Kutch and South Gujarat regions where it was expected to do badly. The Congress, on the other hand, managed to get back as many as 34 seats from the BJP in the Central Gujarat region — only eight are from Saurashtra. Of the seven BJP rebel MLAs who fought the elections on Congress tickets, only one, Bavku Unghad, won from Babra in Amreli district.