New Delhi: Control of the assembly in New Delhi is set to change hands, a feat that eluded the Indian prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party for nearly three decades.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national governing party has swept to victory in an important regional election in India’s capital, where voters previously rejected Mr. Modi’s Hindu-first platform for nearly three decades even as it expanded its footprint elsewhere across the vast country.

By late afternoon on Saturday, the counting of most of the votes in elections for New Delhi’s regional assembly showed that the Bharatiya Janata Party was comfortably forming the government with over 40 seats.