AHMEDABAD, India: Controversial Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi headed for a landslide election win in the Indian state of Gujarat on Thursday, firming up his chances of running for prime minister in 2014.

A decade after overseeing India’s worst religious riots since independence, Modi was set to be re-elected as chief minister in a win that seals his status as the most high-profile leader of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Supporters of the BJP, which is the main opposition party in the national parliament, chanted and waved flags in delight as official counting put the party ahead in 116 seats with the rival Congress party leading in just 60.

While victory was expected, Modi’s popularity on the national stage remains tempered by his failure to stop the riots in his home state in 2002. Some 2,000 people were killed in clashes between Hindus and Muslims, most of them Muslims.

One of his former ministers was jailed for life for instigating the killing of 97 Muslims in one of the most notorious episodes of the riots. But all investigations have cleared Modi of any personal responsibility.

Gujarat, which has a population of 60 million, is one of India’s fastest-growing and most pro-business states, but it was badly scarred by the unrest.

Loyalists on Thursday held up banners declaring that Thursday’s victory was only “a trailer” ahead of the 2014 elections.

Modi, who has been chief minister since 2001 and is seeking a fourth term, is blamed by some rights groups for turning a blind eye as mobs went on an orgy of violence with victims set alight or hacked to death in the streets.