Is India’s Grand Old Party unable to fight the tide of pseudo-nationalism and inexorably sinking to irrelevance? Are its spasmodic performances in the polls a sign of a drowning ship’s struggle to stay afloat?
Let us find out.
Once upon a time, the Indian National Congress (INC) was a powerful nation-building force. It led India to independence and shaped its political imagination for decades. But that was once upon a time. Today, it is a scrawny version of the original. It stands at its most vulnerable moment since its inception. In the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, the NDA won 202 of 243 seats and the Congress party could not even reach ten. It confirms a deeper, long-term decline. For more than a decade now, the party has struggled in national and state elections. The leadership has failed to understand India’s changing politics or adjust to new political realities. It has lost its national character, its organisational networks, its ideological clarity, and most importantly, its connect with aspirational voters who now dominate India’s demographic and political landscape.
Would it be realistic to expect the Congress Party to overhaul itself? Perhaps, India’s messy political future might be shaped by a new leader or a new party capable of addressing the country’s social, economic, and political churn?
How Congress Reached the Brink: A Slow Motion Collapse
Congress’s defeat in Bihar is part of a broader trajectory of electoral and organisational erosion. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party managed to increase its tally to 99 seats, but this improvement was largely due to the INDIA bloc’s coordinated seat-sharing, regional alliances, and strong anti-incumbency in certain pockets. Beneath this surface-level revival lay a more troubling reality: the Congress’s individual vote share remained weak, its strike rate poor, and its dependence on allies overwhelming.
In Haryana, winning 37 out of 90 seats was not enough to form a government. In Maharashtra, the party collapsed to a mere 16 seats out of 288 despite being part of a supposedly formidable alliance. And in Bihar, it fared even worse, dropping to below 10 seats, with its vote share sinking below 5%. These outcomes reflect a consistent pattern: Congress performs poorly wherever it contests without the crutches of regional partners, particularly in the Hindi heartland, where it has virtually vanished as a political force.
Clearly, the party is suffering from structural rot and leadership crisis. It continues to revolve around the Gandhi family, particularly Rahul Gandhi. Despite the media optics, his leadership style has failed to enthuse voters and party workers. The infamous “high command culture” has continued to suffocate internal democracy, reducing state units to passive recipients of Delhi’s directives. New talent is discouraged, old talent migrates to the BJP, and ambitious leaders like Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora, and Jyotiraditya Scindia have either left or been sidelined. The likes of Kanhaiya Kumar are being rendered ineffective by mismanaging their roles.
The Congress today no longer inspires, organises, or even imagines what a modern political movement in India should look like.
Of course, the picture is not uniformly bleak. Congress remains relevant in parts of southern India where its secular, welfare-oriented message finds more traction. It also retains a sizeable national vote base, hovering around 20–21 percent, suggesting that the party is not electorally dead, but organisationally adrift and strategically misguided.
India’s Political Landscape: A Shift to Multipolar Pragmatism
The Bihar verdict must be understood within the broader reconfiguration of Indian politics after the 2024 general elections. The BJP remains the dominant force but now operates within a more constrained coalition environment, relying heavily on allies such as the TDP and JD(U). The era of unchallenged Modi-led centralisation has apparently given way to a hybrid phase wherein a strong BJP-led national governance is balanced by assertive regional players in key states.
This evolving equilibrium reveals three clear trends. First, regional parties are becoming indispensable to India’s political landscape. Leaders such as Tejaswi Yadav in Bihar, M.K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, and Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi command loyal vote banks and increasingly act as ideological counterweights to the BJP. They are shaping debates on caste justice, federal rights, and welfare. These are the areas Congress once dominated. Second, mounting social and economic stresses are heavily influencing voter behaviour. Issues like youth unemployment, agrarian distress, and rising inequality remain unresolved. But the BJP’s combination of welfare delivery, digital outreach, and hyper-local organisation allows it to absorb public discontent before it turns into full-blown anti-incumbency. Third, India is entering a long-term era of multipolar political competition. The old Congress-versus-BJP binary is over; the new reality is a “BJP versus many” landscape, where shifting alliances, caste configurations, regional identities, and issue-based mobilisations determine outcomes. This environment is testing the Congress party, which has lost ideological clarity, organisational depth, and credible leadership. Without radical reinvention, it risks being reduced to a regional appendage, surviving mainly in the South while the rest of India reorganises around newer and more dynamic political centres.
Overhaul or Oblivion? The Road Ahead for Congress
So, can Congress reform itself? Theoretically, yes. Practically, the probability is low.
A genuine overhaul of the Congress Party would require a fundamental shift in its leadership and organisational culture. This would mean replacing the Gandhi family with a democratically elected leadership, rebuilding state-level cadres from scratch, and empowering young leaders with real autonomy rather than symbolic roles. The party also needs to embrace data-driven election strategies, modernise its communication and digital outreach to match contemporary political campaigning. It should have a clear, coherent ideological position on economic and social issues. These changes should not be cosmetic but deep structural transformation, which Congress has long avoided. However, it can no longer avoid them if it hopes to survive as a national force.
But none of these appear on the horizon. The Congress Working Committee continues to operate as a ceremonial body, devoted more to preserving the family’s centrality than confronting the party’s structural decay. Even when internal voices call for reform—as Shashi Tharoor and others have done repeatedly—they are sidelined or ignored.
Given these dynamics, the most likely scenario is incremental tinkering rather than radical reform. Congress will continue its slow decline in the Hindi heartland, maintain pockets of strength in the South, and rely heavily on allies for survival. This trajectory may keep the party alive, but only just.
If Not Congress, Then Who? Possible New Leaders and Emerging Forces
India’s political future may not hinge on the Congress Party at all, as several alternative scenarios are increasingly plausible. One possibility is that a visionary, non-dynastic leader from within Congress manages to break through the party’s internal resistance and spearhead a revival. But current power structures make this unlikely. Another scenario is the rise of a new political movement. Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj offers an early glimpse of what a data-driven, development-oriented, caste-aware party could become, especially in states like Bihar. A third path involves regional coalitions taking over the national opposition space. RJD, DMK, AAP, SP, and TMC may form a federal alliance that may challenge the BJP more effectively than Congress in its current form. India could also witness the emergence of a charismatic outsider or technocrat—an Emmanuel Macron–type figure who bypasses traditional party structures to build a movement centred on governance, employment, technology, and clean politics. Finally, the BJP itself might undergo generational changes in the post-Modi era, producing leadership that is more moderate, technocratic, or federalist, reshaping national politics from within. Given present trajectories, India is far more likely to see new political actors or alliances rise to prominence than a Congress-led renaissance.
The Future of Indian Politics: Fragmentation, Federalism, and Competitive Stability
In the coming years, India is likely to witness a political landscape where the BJP remains dominant at the national level. But it will increasingly rely on coalition partners to govern. Regional parties will continue to grow in strength, pushing for greater federal autonomy and influencing national policy from the periphery. Consequently, the opposition space will become more fragmented. Congress may shrink in the northern states and newer political movements rise to fill the gap. Economic pressures—ranging from unemployment and inflation to widening inequality—are also likely to spark fresh political experiments. These may give rise to new centrist or left-of-centre platforms. India’s democracy may become more coalition-driven: messy, competitive, and shaped by constant negotiation rather than single-party dominance. This transition may not solve India’s current social and economic challenges overnight. But it will help generate new ideas, new leaders, and fresh political imaginations.
Conclusion: The End of the Old Congress, and the Birth of Something New
The Indian National Congress stands at a historic crossroads. Its decline is neither sudden nor temporary. It is the result of chronic leadership failures, structural decay, and ideological confusion. The Bihar election merely confirmed what has been true for years: Congress is no longer a national party in any meaningful sense.
Whether it undergoes a complete overhaul is uncertain, even improbable. India’s political future is more likely to be shaped by a new leadership constellation. It may emerge from within Congress, from regional forces, or entirely outside the current party system.
What is clear, however, is that India’s democracy is evolving. The next era will be defined not by the old Congress-versus-BJP binary but by multipolar competition. One sees regional assertion, coalition bargaining, and the search for a leader who can address the country’s deepening economic and social crises. Whether that leader emerges soon—or whether the vacuum persists—will decide India’s political future.
Perhaps we are looking at the rise of new ideologies and ideologues in the near future. Perhaps India’s political landscape will transform into something beyond recognition. Only time will tell.
Indian National Congress, BJP, TMC, DMK, BSP, Samajwadi Party, TDP, RJD, JD(U), Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka, Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Karnataka, Bihar, CEC, Prashant Kishor,
