It’s been a dark four and a half years for India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress. After getting trounced in the 2014 general elections by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress headed into a protracted downward spiral. Its parliamentary tally shrank from 206 seats (out of 543 in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament) to a paltry 44—not even large enough to qualify to officially lead the opposition. In state after state, the Congress seemed unable—and, often, unwilling—to halt the BJP’s electoral juggernaut.
