The Indian National Congress party had a significant contribution in India's freedom movement. All famous leaders who were a central part of the movement, such as Tilak, Gandhi, Bose, Nehru, belonged to INC. Due to this, party was quite popular in common Indians and had a very strong structural foundations. It helped INC to gain 364 seats in Indian's first general elections conducted in 1951–52. Pandit Nehru became first prime minister of India.
As a leader, Nehru was quite soft and idealistic. While it is true that he has significant contribution in establishing PSUs,IITs and ISRO and other organisations that helped India in the long term, his soft stance led India to lose 1962 war to China, resulting in a significant territory loss. Despite his pros and cons, his popularity and party's strong grass root level strength helped the INC to gain huge mandates in 1957 and 1962 elections. At this stage the INC was in it's peak form.
Following Nehru's passing in 1964, Shastri became PM and served until his own demise in 1966. In the 1967 elections, INC contested with Indira as face of the congress. While it is true that the INC succeeded in gaining a majority with 283 seats, it lost almost 80 seats. In Nehru’s absence, Indira found it quite difficult to manage the party. She was surrounded by many senior leaders who tried to intervene in the party's strategy and decisions. She was called “Gungi Gudia” due to her introvert and shy nature. Reports claim that Indira didn't have interest in politics in the first place and wanted to pursue other careers. She also wanted to focus on her family life. However, circumstances forced her to be in politics.
By 1968–1969, Indira pivoted her stance completely and started to hold a tight grip over the party. She established an advisory committee for herself which guided her regarding party’s strategy. Earlier, the INC used to pamper rich Indians but Indira changed this with decisions like the nationalization of 14 banks in 1969, the cancellation of the kings’ pension. She also tilted towards the Soviet Union and Socialism. Her maneuvering in the 1971 war to separate Bangladesh from Pakistan turned out to be her biggest achievement as PM. It helped her to win a big mandate in the 1971 elections by winning 352 seats. Had indira not changed her stance during this period and has she continued with a soft stance like nehru, the INC would have collapsed completely. At this point, the INC was at it's highest peak.
During her 1971 tenure, she faced serious corruption, bribery, and electoral malpractice allegations. She was proven guilty of electoral malpractices by the Allahabad High Court, which led to a 6-year ban from contesting elections. This is considered the primary reason behind declaring the infamous Emergency. However, Jay Prakash Narayan’s appeal in one of his rallies to the army and police to disobey the government was considered as incitement to rebellion and used as a justification to declare the Emergency. The Emergency lasted until 1977. Due to the government’s misgovernance and bad actions, such as the forced sterilization of men, it inculcated immense anger and displeasure among the people. As soon as the Emergency was lifted and the 1977 elections were conducted, the INC lost miserably, losing almost 198 seats and shrinking down to just 154 seats. The Janata Party, under the leadership of Morarji Desai, won the mandate. However, this wasn't the downfall point for the INC. Indira managed to develop sympathy for herself in the people’s minds despite the Emergency excesses. Also, due to the Janata party’s internal ego issues, it became entangled in misgovernance and collapsed in 1979. It benefited Indira and the INC, allowing them to bounce back and gain a huge 353-seat mandate in the 1980 elections. During this tenure, she took some bold decisions, such as Operation Blue Star, which caused her assassination in 1984. During Indira’s rule, the INC was in its peak. However, Indira’s strategy to make the party dependent on her popularity to win elections, combined with restrictions on the influence of regional leaders, turned out to be highly damaging for the party's structural strength in the years that followed.
After Indira’s demise, her son Rajiv Gandhi, who had zero interest in politics and was working as a pilot, was asked to enter politics and contest the 1984 elections. The INC benefited from the sympathy wave generated by Indira's demise and won 414 seats—the biggest mandate achieved by any single party in independent India’s history. Rajiv capitalised on it to bring economic reforms in the form of the IT and telecom revolutions and the partial opening of the economy. However, from an electoral politics perspective, a few of his decisions damaged the INC's voter base permanently. His first decision was regarding the Shah Bano alimony case. The Supreme Court had ordered to uphold a Muslim woman's right to alimony. Due to this decision, orthodox Muslims, who were strong supporters of Muslim personal law, developed displeasure against the government. To please this section, the Rajiv government reversed the Supreme Court’s decision. However, it resulted in displeasure among liberal Muslims and the Hindu community, who viewed the decision as appeasement to the Muslims. To make this section happy, the Rajiv government opened the locks of the Babri Masjid, which turned out to be his biggest blunder. This decision gave birth to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the eventual demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. It alienated Muslim voters from the INC and gave rise to regional secular parties. Upper-caste Hindu voters also shifted from the INC to the BJP. Additionally, Rajiv was accused by VP Singh in the Bofors scam, which he failed to counter properly. All these decisions and allegations led to a huge loss for the INC in the 1989 elections, shrinking down from 414 seats to a mere 197 seats. After this point in time, the INC never won a majority of seats again and needed to depend on coalition support to form the government.
After the VP Singh government’s collapse, the INC came back into power in the 1991 elections under PV Narasimha Rao’s leadership. While this government took the economic liberalization decision which helped India come out of an economic crisis, the government’s inability to stop the demolition of the Babri Masjid alienated Muslim voters from them, which led to their defeat in the 1996 elections. The INC came back into power again in the 2004 elections through the UPA coalition and gained another term by winning the 2009 elections under Sonia Gandhi's leadership. This was the last instance when the INC crossed the 200-seat mark and formed the government.
Due to the UPA-2 government’s inefficient governance, a large number of corruption cases, rising inflation, and policy paralysis, it was defeated badly in the 2014 elections. They were shrunk down to 44 seats, the worst performance by the INC ever. This instance almost changed the political landscape for the INC. Many prominent INC leaders switched to the BJP. They took the party’s regional organizational structure along with them, making it fragile in multiple states. On the other hand, the BJP increased its grip over the media, institutions, and social media to spread a pro-government narrative and neutralize opposition leaders. They ran expensive and dedicated campaigns against Rahul Gandhi on social media to damage his image and inculcated pro-Hindutva fundamentalism and Islamophobia in the minds of the youth, which resulted in a dedicated voter base voting for them regardless of development. In the 2019 elections, the BJP won a huge mandate, surpassing their 2014 mandate, keeping the INC at 52 seats only. This was the INC’s second-worst performance ever.
In the 2024 elections, the INC succeeded in bringing all opposition parties under the INDIA coalition umbrella. They succeeded in spreading the “constitution in danger” narrative, which resonated very well with minorities and lower-caste people, resulting in 230 coalition seats, of which the INC won 99. While this was a great success for the INDIA alliance, it shifted the INC's position in the alliance from leader to influential partner. In many state assembly elections, it changed the INC’s position from big brother to small brother, letting regional parties dictate decisions. At the current time, except in 4–5 states, the INC doesn't have a single-party government in any of the states. Its organizational structure is dead in many states. While reclaiming its glory days seems nearly impossible for the INC, matching the electoral success of the UPA-1 or UPA-2 eras would still be a remarkable achievement for them.