India's ruling party looked set to lose power in at least one of three traditional stronghold states releasing election results Tuesday, in a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of national polls in 2019. 

Early election results in the central state of Chhattisgarh indicated the main opposition Congress party of Rahul Gandhi would win 59 seats compared to just 11 for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Hindu nationalist BJP has ruled Chhattisgarh for the past 15 years. 

The race looked closer in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two other traditional strongholds of Modi's BJP that were also counting votes following elections in the states this month and last. In central Madhya Pradesh, home to 73 million people, early results put the BJP neck-and-neck with Congress, as observers said it was too early to call the result either way. Similarly in the western desert state of Rajasthan – ruled by the BJP's Vasundhara Raje, a maharani or princess – Modi's party was predicted to win 74 seats compared to 97 for Congress. 

Tuesday's results are being seen as a referendum on 68-year-old Modi, who will be seeking a second term in the office in national elections due by May 2019. Defeats in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan would dent his invincible image and put the party on the back foot. It would also strengthen 48-year-old Gandhi – scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty – with Congress having lost more than a dozen states to the BJP since Modi became prime minister in 2014. 

The BJP currently rules 19 out of 29 Indian states either outright or in alliance with local parties. Congress rules just two states, including one in alliance with a regional partner. 

Political commentators have linked the BJP's apparent dwindling support to growing rural distress and unemployment rates in the country. 

"We've all voted for Congress this time and our candidate is winning here," said Bishnu Prasad Jalodia, a wheat grower in Madhya Pradesh. "BJP ignored us farmers, they ignored those of us at the bottom of the pyramid."

The elections are also a test for Gandhi, president of the left-of-center Congress, who is trying to forge a broad alliance with regional groups and face Modi with his most serious challenge yet next year.

Poll analysts cautioned that with the counting in preliminary stages, it was still too early to predict the outcome of state races involving millions of voters.

(Cover: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) stands with senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders as he addresses media representatives after arriving for the winter session of parliament in New Delhi, December 11, 2018. /VCG Photo)