AHMEDABAD: Narendra Modi has pledged to make the 21st century “India’s century” after leading his party to a landslide election victory.

“I want to make the 21st century India’s century. It will take 10 years, not very long,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told supporters in Gujarat.

“India is our mother. How can we watch our mother cry?” he said on the eve of his departure for New Delhi.

In a combative speech, the prime minister-elect pledged to make good governance and development cornerstones of his administration as he drew a contrast with the defeated Congress party’s emphasis on welfare programs.

“People used to believe that you couldn’t run an election on the basis of development, that to win an election you had to hand out scraps to people,” he said.

“Modi will be PM with the BJP winning, that’s been decided, but I am thinking ahead... Those politicians who don’t believe in development, who ran away from development during the election, they too will accept development as an election platform in the coming days.”

Modi also struck a conciliatory tone toward political rivals, and said he would work with opposition parties.

The BJP will not need allies to form a government, but it will have to call on outside support to pass laws in the upper house, where it only has around one fifth of seats.

“The election period is over and it is time to put the heat and dust behind,” Modi said.

“I hope I will get the support of everyone, including my opponents.”

On the leafy main road outside the BJP’s national office in New Delhi, drummers in leopard-print robes, circus performers on stilts and painted elephants performed for hundreds of cheering and dancing revelers.

Rows of fire crackers were set off and colored powder filled the air.

Celebrations also took place in Mumbai, where BJP flags were mounted on toy planes, and in Gujarat’s state capital Gandhinagar, where crowds swarmed around Modi’s car after he visited his mother’s house in a working class neighborhood.

“Modi is a great personality. Once you hear him speak, you are drawn to him,” said Surendra Tadi, a 34-year-old electrical engineer who had left his home in Noida, a satellite city of Delhi, at 6.30 a.m. to travel to the party’s headquarters.

Tadi wore a t-shirt bearing a large picture of Modi and the slogan “I Modified India.”

The frenetic crowd around him consisted mostly of young men in Modi masks and hats made of saffron cloth.