Tough decisions ahead for a triumphant Modi

China has expressed the hope that there will be closer ties with India under a BJP administration, noting that there were a large number of Chinese enterprises investing in Gujarat. However, Modi has been uncompromising on the unresolved border issues between the two countries and will certainly demand that Beijing dumps once and for all its outrageous claim on the whole state of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet.

Modi has not travelled a great deal in recent years partly due to visa bans put on him by the United States and several European countries for his failure to halt the deadly Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002 (Modi has always claimed he did his best to stop the violence in which around 1000 people, most of them Muslims, died).

Any remaining restrictions will obviously be lifted now he is the leader of the world's biggest democracy and President Barak Obama effectively ended the US ban by calling Modi to congratulate him and inviting him to visit the White House.

Congratulations have also come from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott who said he looked forward to welcoming Modi to the G20 Summit in Brisbane later in the year.

As Modi and the BJP plot India's course for the next five years, there are big question marks over the future of the routed Congress, India's one mighty Grand Old Party now reduced to a rump of around 60 seats in the 543-seat Loc Sabah (Parliament).

I suggested to one dispirited Congress official that this resounding rejection should bring an end to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated the party, and through it the government, since independence in 1947, especially as its latest member, Rahul Gandhi, had made such a poor show against Modi in the election.

The official rejected this argument. "The family are the glue that keeps this party together," he said. "Without them Congress will disintegrate into various regional factions."

Hardly before the final votes were in, Congress insiders were talking about the promotion of Rahul's sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who did not stand in the election, as its next leader.

Priyanka would probably have made a better candidate than her diffident, colourless brother, but the obsession with the past glories of the Nehru-Gandhis is leading Congress into a blind alley where its ambitious young members are frustrated at having their path to the top job consistently blocked by the latest member of the family.

Democracy requires both a government and an opposition. How a depleted Congress will handle the latter role over the next five years will determine whether it still has a future in India's political life.