INDIA’S main opposition Congress party wrested control of the crucial southern Karnataka state from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, according to results announced yesterday.

The poll provides a boost to the Congress party ahead of national elections due next year.

The divided opposition is banking on forming a united front to challenge Mr Modi in next year’s general election in which the ultra right-wing prime minister will seek to extend his premiership for a third consecutive term. 

The Congress party, which was routed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last two national polls, is striving to regain its political prominence nationwide.

The defeat in Karnataka means Mr Modi’s party has lost the only southern state it has ever controlled. 

Mr Modi had campaigned aggressively in Karnataka, home to 65 million people, and crisscrossed the state holding huge rallies.

India’s Election Commission said that the Congress had won more than 130 out of the 234 state assembly seats. It needed a simple majority of 113 seats to form the government. Mr Modi’s BJP won under 70 seats.

Another party, Janata Dal (Secular), won 20 seats.

Karnataka is the second state Modi’s party has lost to the Congress in the last six months. In December, the Congress unseated BJP in northern Himachal Pradesh, a small Himalayan state.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh attributed the party’s win to having fought on local issues of “livelihood and food security, price rises, farmer distress, electricity supply, joblessness and corruption.”

“The PM injected divisiveness and attempted polarisation. The vote in Karnataka is for an engine in Bengaluru that will combine economic growth with social harmony,” Mr Ramesh wrote on Twitter.

The election in Karnataka is the first of five crucial state polls this year. They are seen as an indicator of voter sentiment ahead of national elections next year.