After winning three major heartland states in December, the Congress party found itself once more in trouble following the results on May 23. At the national level or in important states, the Congress suddenly has nothing going right. Even if the party gains eight seats over 2014, that is certainly not a significant improvement. The party is actively seeking scapegoats to blame for the mess in the Lok Sabha in 2019.

As a result of a string of electoral defeats and a lack of coherent leadership, the Congress party's decline has been long-awaited. The current leader, Rahul Gandhi, has come under fire for failing to instill confidence in the party's ability to govern and being out of touch with the requirements of the Indian populace. The party's decline has been significantly influenced by his lack of political experience.

The possibilities in key states like Maharashtra and Haryana where the party was a significant power up to 2013, look distressing in the approach the gathering decisions. In Maharashtra, the Congress has fallen to fourth place, and it may only win one seat in the Lok Sabha elections. Even though Congress had a small base of two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, they still managed to lose 50 percent of their seats. An ex-Shiv Sena MLA who joined the party shortly before the elections won Chandrapur's single seat.

Even though exit polls showed a completely different picture, Rahul Gandhi was living in a make-believe world where he was reasonably confident of becoming the Prime Minister. So how did the Congress veer off-track? Will ten years without power seriously harm the Congress Party? The Lok Sabha election result has prompted numerous inquiries. The year that began for the Congress with high hopes appears to have gone horribly wrong, and more horrors are anticipated in the next six months.

Now the reasons for decline behind congress party was :

Political tactics

Caste mobilization and religious appeasement are still central to Congress politics. To win elections, Congress relies more on a loyal vote bank than on administrative performance. The Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, which promised to immediately implement a farm loan waiver, is a more recent example. The commitment has not been satisfied at this point. Power scales are back in MP after quite a while. Basic governance is never a focus of Congress.

It appears that it has not yet learned from Modi's success in providing basic services and welfare programs. Instead, Congress party is supported by the 15-20% Muslim votebank in various states. The next step is to pair it with the largest Hindu caste in each state. It could be the Gujjars in Rajasthan, the Jats in Haryana, or the Marathas in Maharashtra. Dalit voters continue to be significant contributors to Congress. Congress, on the other hand, has never done enough to protect their constituents.

In point of fact, Congress appears to believe that keeping voters poor enables multiple exploitations. Through programs like Ujjwala, MUDRA, and Saubhagya (electricity connection for any willing household), among others, the Modi administration has done more for Dalits, as well as other Hindu castes and religions.

Congress has not yet grasped the fact that we are in the post-mandal era and that voters from various social groups prefer service delivery to merely having ministers from their caste or region represented.

Giving preference to dynasty

Congress has consistently shown an inclination for status and dynast over ability. Recent examples include the selection of Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan's chief executive and Kamal Nath as Madhya Pradesh's chief executive, respectively, over Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia. This does not mean that Pilot and Scindia are not dynasties; rather, they are much younger than Gehlot and Nath and may have been able to attract voters with novel concepts. Instead, old men like Gehlot and Kamal Nath, who funded the campaign for the assembly and Lok Sabha elections, were chosen to be chief ministers. The party has continued to work with the same tired and familiar faces who have been around for decades but have failed to provide governance.

Never look beyond the nehru family

Congress has become a Nehru-Gandhi incorporated in the last few decades. Leader outside the family cannot be visualized as leading the party. It is possible that a dummy leader like AK Antony or Ashok Gehlot might be selected to be the party president in place of Rahul Gandhi. But in such an arrangement, it would be the family running the party. Most of the leaders in the Congress know that the rot starts at the top, but no one has the guts not the inclination to blame Rahul Gandhi for the same

Arrogance towards other parties

Recently, Priyanka Gandhi attributed the failure in Uttar Pradesh to the party karyakartas. Even a five-year-old would have predicted that the Congress's only possible outcome in Uttar Pradesh would be a disaster. The Congress community portrayed Priyanka Gandhi as the party's ultimate savior and a mirror image of Indira Gandhi.

Despite Indira's arrogance and contempt for party workers, she exuded the air of having won the war in 1971 and secured her position at the top through her fight with the syndicate. Priyanka and Rahul have their situations on a platter and their main capability has that been of a "fortunate sperm". Unless you have a remarkable track record in governance, arrogance does not significantly advance a leader in politics. The Gandhi kin have no accomplishment. The success in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhatisgarh was interpreted as evidence of anti-incumbency against the union government due to this arrogance.

The Congress Party's internal rifts and factionalism have also contributed to its decline. The party's old guard has been sidelined in favor of younger leaders who lack the experience and political acumen of their predecessors. This has created a leadership vacuum within the party, leaving it vulnerable to attack from its political opponents.