NEW DELHI, Dec 15: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in Gujarat on Sunday and its rightwing extremist fringe, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), whose anti-Muslim hate campaign shaped the stunning outcome, said the country would turn into a Hindu Rashtra (state) by the next general election, due in 2004.

The BJP won a whopping 127 seats in the 181-seat assembly, belying nearly all predictions, most of which had given it a simple majority after an anti-Muslim pogrom led by the VHP left 2000 dead in February and March this year.

Whipping up anti-Pakistan sentiments was the other key plank of the BJP campaign.

The Congress, which had fielded a former BJP chief minister as it own candidate, got a poor 50 seats, triggering a fresh round of finger-pointing, including demands for the resignation of state chief Shakasinh Vaghela and even Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

VHP leader Praveenbhai Togadia was camping in Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, where the BJP stunned the ruling Congress party with a clean sweep of the three state assembly seats that went for byelections.

Togadia, seen as the spirit behind the hate campaign in Gujarat, said the Gujarat election was a turning point in the country’s politics, with Hindutva, euphemism for anti-Muslim and anti-Christian hate campaign, emerging as the central plank for future elections.

Talking to reporters here, a beaming Togadia said India would be a “Hindu Rashtra” in the next two years.