evidence: In a major shot in the arm ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections, India’s main opposition party, the Congress, wrested control over the southern Indian state of Karnataka from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in last week’s assembly election. [...] This is the second state assembly election success that the Congress has tasted in recent months, the previous one being in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India last December. While Himachal is a small state with only four Lok Sabha seats, a Karnataka victory was long considered crucial for the Congress to regain its lost strength. [...] Third, Karnataka is one of the states that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra – a south-to-north journey covering India’s length – went through a few months ago. A Congress defeat would have been portrayed by the BJP as the people’s rejection of the Nehru-Gandhi family scion, who has been at the center of the BJP’s attack at the national level. Gandhi addressed 17 rallies in Karnataka, energizing party workers.