Netanyahu praises election victory of pro-Israel India PM Narendra Modi

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday became the first world leader to congratulate Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his landslide election victory in India.

With around half the 600 million votes cast counted, Election Commission data showed Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 300 of India's 543 elected lower house seats.

"Congratulations, my friend @Narendramodi, on your impressive election victory!" Netanyahu tweeted in Hindi, Hebrew and English.

"The election results further reaffirm your leadership of the world's largest democracy. Together we will continue to strengthen the great friendship between India & Israel. Well done, my friend!"

Since Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stormed to power in 2014, India has undergone a huge military modernisation programme worth more than $100 billion - and Israel has been a key player.

India is now Israel's biggest arms market, buying weapons at an average of $1 billion each year.

Modi made a ground-breaking first ever visit by an Indian premier to Israel in 2017 to cement growing defence ties.

Later that year Israel won 1.6 billion euros of orders from India, which it hailed as its largest ever arms export deal.

Beyond defence and military ties, Modi's far-right Hindu nationalist supporters find common cause in Israel's hostility to surrounding Muslim-majority states, as well as widespread anti-Muslim sentiment.

Modi, a former cadre in the militaristic hardline Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and chief minister of Gujurat in 2002 when riots killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, is also seen as divisive.

Lynchings of Muslims and low-caste Dalits for eating beef and slaughtering and trading in cattle have risen, adding to anxiety among India's 170-million-strong Muslim population.

Under Modi several cities with names rooted in India's Islamic Mughal past have been re-named, while some school textbooks have been changed to downplay Muslims' contributions to India.