Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headed for a surprise election victory in Haryana state on Tuesday, reinforcing its popularity in the northern heartland a few months after stumbling in national elections.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trailed in two provincial elections as votes were counted on Tuesday, TV channels said, a fresh setback after it failed to win a clear majority in the general election this year.

The vote share of the BJP and Congress turned out to be close even though the saffron party won the elections with a simple majority. The BJP received 39.94 per cent votes, while the Congress managed 39.

India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared on course for a surprise win on Tuesday in polls in the northern state of Haryana, but was trailing the opposition in the first elections in a decade in troubled Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir.

A statistical analysis of the results besides these headline numbers shows a more comprehensive story of a growing and deepening BJP footprint in the state. Here is how. A good way to measure whether or not a party is a force to reckon with in a state is to look at the number of constituencies where it finishes either first or second.