evidence: The Congress Party has gained momentum in the southern Indian state of Karnataka after winning a crucial state election against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A vote count by the Election Commission revealed that Congress won 135 assembly seats out of 224—well past the majority mark of 113—to form the state government. The BJP had less than 70 seats. Karnataka is home to 65 million people, including many young professionals who work in its capital city and tech hub of Bangalore. Until now, it was the only state in southern India that was controlled by the BJP. It is the first of five big states to head to the polls this year, and the second state where the BJP has lost to Congress in the last six months after a state election in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh in December. [...] In Karnataka, the BJP had been in power since 2018 after campaigning on its dominant platform of Hindu-nationalist values that pandered to majority Hindu voters. Analysts say this election result has demonstrated the "limits of Hindutva." Wrote one columnist in the Hindustan Times, "the BJP made a big pitch for Hindutva to contain the Congress in these elections. The results show that the strategy might have backfired instead of working."