NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling coalition won a key state election in a vote seen as a crucial test of the leader's popularity in one of the country’s poorest yet most politically influential states.

Results Friday from the Election Commission of India, the country’s election watchdog, show the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, secured a landslide victory in the 243-member legislature in the eastern state of Bihar.

A simple majority to form the government is 122 while Modi’s alliance bagged 202 seats with BJP alone taking 89.

A victory in Bihar, the country’s third-most populous state with nearly 130 million people, is crucial as it sends 40 lawmakers — the country’s fourth highest — to the 543-seat lower house of parliament.

Its

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