A clash took place after members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won two thirds of the seats in the state legislature, formed a procession in the town of Baroda to celebrate. Marchers were pelted with bricks by Muslims and four Muslim-owned shops were burnt down.

In Ahmadabad, 80 miles away, rival mobs pelted each other with stones until dispersed by police using teargas.

Ahmadabad and Baroda were among places caught up in sectarian blood-letting earlier this year, in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

One BJP supporter died yesterday when a victory procession was attacked in the town of Rajkot in the west of the state, police said.

The election in Gujarat, where between 9 and 10 per cent of the population is Muslim, had been polarised by a campaign of Muslim-baiting by Narendra Modi, the former Chief Minister. The extent of the BJP’s victory will encourage hardliners in the party to push for aggressively pro-Hindu policies elsewhere in the country.

Polls had predicted a fairly close electoral fight, but the BJP won 126 of the 182 seats in the state assembly and its rival, the Congress Party, won 51 seats. Other parties took five.

Elections in ten states are due next year and national elections must be held before 2004. The Gujarat victory will be an asset to the BJP after its defeat in four state elections this year.

The BJP capitalised on an incident in February in which nearly 60 Hindu passengers returning from a pilgrimage to Ayodhya were burnt alive when their train compartment was set on fire by a mob.

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