The Congress hasn’t just won a state, it has thrown a lifeline to the anti-Modi forces in India.

Without the victory in Karnataka, a demoralised Opposition might have felt it was stranded at a dead end. But the Congress has fought valiantly in the southern state to place forces opposed to the RSS-BJP in the boxing ring, and now the stage is set for a fierce battle in next year’s general election.

This victory promises to take care of several infirmities the troubled Opposition has been grappling with: the absence of credible leadership, a lack of control over narratives, and confusion about what tactical positioning would work against the Narendra Modi election machine’s propaganda.

While Rahul Gandhi has doubtless emerged as a formidable leader, with his Bharat Jodo Yatra bringing an enervated Congress back into the battlefield, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Mallikarjun Kharge have established themselves as powerful campaigners.

Congress supporters in Bangalore on Saturday PTI

The success of the party’s unwavering focus on livelihood issues and a welfare agenda, in the face of the people’s economic hardship, takes care of the issues of narrative and tactics.

Prime Minister Modi’s divisive rhetoric failed to hijack the narrative, set by the twin planks of corruption — the state ministers’ alleged demand for 40 per cent commissions to clear contractors’ bills — and the Congress’s five “guarantees” that offered a concrete programme of economic amelioration.

For years, the Congress had seemed confused about how to tackle the BJP’s polarising campaigns, which often entangled it in a maze of emotive issues. This time, the Congress avoided the trap, refusing to be diverted or distracted by BJP rhetoric.

Local leaders P.C. Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar as well as high command representatives Kharge, Rahul and Priyanka steadfastly flagged the BJP government’s corruption and the Congress’s guarantees, which involve financial aid to the poor as well as the lower middle class.

Saturday’s results have dented the hype around Modi’s “invincibility”. Top BJP campaigners including Union home minister Amit Shah and party national president J.P. Nadda had appealed to the voters to forget the local party and government and remember only Modi, turning the election into a referendum on the Prime Minister’s popularity.

Modi too gave it his best shot — dangling a cocktail of infrastructure projects and serving up religious polarisation.

He kept talking about the controversial film, The Kerala Story, to whip up passions. His identification of the Bajrang Dal with Bajrang Bali tested not just Hindu religious sanctity but constitutional values and provisions.

The BJP and much of the media argued that the main obstacle before the Congress was Modi. The Congress has now overcome that hurdle and implicit in its success is the larger message that the Modi juggernaut can be derailed if Modi is not allowed to derail the Opposition’s campaign.

The Congress will be hoping it has finally exposed the limitations of a divisive discourse, historical distortions, and a development narrative that ignores people’s basic livelihood needs.

The lesson seems to be that statues and highways are no substitute for affordable cooking gas, petrol and diesel, that 5kg of food grains a month is not enough to satisfy the aspirational poor, and that people have realised the hollowness of Modi’s purported crusade against corruption.

Now, the Congress and other Opposition parties know they have to keep it simple, focusing on livelihood concerns to defang the BJP’s polarisation tactics.

The Congress had earlier tried this model of campaigning in Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, which the party governs, are already benefiting from various welfare schemes.

If the Congress succeeds in implementing the promised guarantees in Karnataka before the next round of Assembly elections in November, it will have done its credibility a world of good.

“People have made it absolutely clear that they want the kind of politics that solves their problems, addresses their concerns,” Priyanka told the media in Shimla.

“The politics of diversions won’t work now. People have woken up and they refused to get diverted. We have given some guarantees and now we have to show that we have begun a new kind of politics by sincerely implementing them.”

The Congress leadership had also acted intelligently and effectively to prevent any intra-party differences. The Bharat Jodo Yatra allowed Rahul to iron out differences between arch-rivals Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, ensuring they developed a working relationship.

Rahul convinced them that they would both be rendered helpless if the Congress didn’t win and, therefore, unity of purpose was a must.

The general secretary in charge of the state, Randeep Surjewala, too was impartial in handling all political issues.