Top US experts on India have said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a clear favourite for the 2019 general elections after the BJP's landslide victory in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The Assembly elections do not signal much of a change. The Uttar Pradesh election results showed that the 2014 general elections were not an "aberration"," Adam Ziegfeld, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University said.

"It was a big win for the BJP. Its candidate won with much larger margin of victory than compared to the two previous winners - BSP and Samajwadi Party," he said.

“Modi has been established by this election as the "clear and favourite winner" for the 2019 elections,” Sadanand Dhume, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said. "Modi is the front runner (for 2019)," he said.

Irfan Nooruddin, a professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University predicted that “in 2019, the BJP is unlikely to be get a simple majority and Modi would rather be heading a coalition government. BJP is running a disciplines election campaign state-by-state, while the Opposition fails,” he said.

By Premji