India's BJP heading for victory in next year's general election, say pundits India's Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, appears set to win next year's general election following its rout of the ruling Congress in a series of state assembly polls, analysts said today. The ruling party was heavily defeated in Rajasthan, where it was ousted from government and reduced from 95 to 21 seats, and in Delhi where it has been in power for 15 years. Its chief minister Sheila Dikshit, lost her seat to Arvind Kejriwal, the founder and leader of the anti-corruption Aam Admi Party which pushed the Congress into third place in its spectacular election debut. Congress was reduced from 43 seats in the state assembly to just eight. The BJP did spectacularly well. Overall it suggests that the ferocity of the anti-Congress mood has been underestimated by most people. The scale of its defeat in all these places is remarkable," said leading commentator Swapan Dasgupta. Congress had counted on generous welfare benefits like guaranteed work and free school meal schemes to shore up its position and soothe anger over food inflation and corruption scandals. But it had misjudged the mood, said Mr Dasgupta:"[Despite] these welfarist programmes the Congress has banked on, they were completely decimated in Rajasthan," he added. Sharad Pawar, India's agriculture minister and leader of the ruling party's Nationalist Congress ally, blamed weak leadership for the scale of its defeat. Congress has suffered a jolt in the polls. Everybody, including Congress and us, will have to ponder over this seriously. The new generation had a big role in this electoral defeat and their anger has been reflected through the ballot....People don't like weak rulers," he said.