The Congress has obtained only 25.6 per cent of votes polled for the Lok Sabha elections of 1998. This trend of declining people's electoral support to the Congress began in 1989 and it seems to have become irreversible because many social constituencies have new aspirations and other party organisations.

Second, the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and minorities had always looked towards the Congress for the fulfillment of their political aspirations. Not only have the poor and socially vulnerable strata of society shifted away from the Congress, the party has failed to evolve any new social agenda to meet the rising aspirational  levels of the deprived and depressed segments who are now trying to find answers for their problems from parties like the BSP or Samajwadi Party or RJD.

Third, the BJP could never compete with the Congress for the votes of the scheduled castes and tribes and Muslims, but in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, even the BJP has received sizable percentage of votes from these sections.

Fourth, the Congress was an important political link between north and south and eastern and western India. Since 'regions' of India are an important historical reality, the Congress provided an umbrella under which the regions comfortably co-existed and practised the politics of accommodation ... Of late. the Congress has been made to vacate political spaces in some important regions of the country and in a few other regions, its percentage is very thin and its spread is quite limited ...

... On the other side, the Congress has a solid political support of one-fourth of the large population of voters who participated in the Lok Sabha elections. Not only this. If Congress leadership and party organisation are determined and united as has been shown in Maharashtra, the party can successfully mobilise its supporters. The success story of the Congress in Maharashtra has a great moral for the party ...

The Congress like Hinduism has become a way of life for India for the masses who do not accept the extremist Hindutva and sectarian casteist politics. While its relevance as a reliable 'centrist' force is acceptable to a large section of Indian society, its present ideological bankruptcy puts off voters who want positive social programmatic politics ...

... During the Gandhi-Nehu phase of leadership fundamental social goals for the building of a New India occupied centrestage. Not only this. The Congress could not have won the elections without offering an acceptable social agenda before the voters and Indira Gandhi had learnt her party's history quite well by raising the issue of Garfbi Hatao ... Mrs. Gandhi succeeded in her struggle for power by projecting an ideological force of the Congress faction under her leadership.

All successors to Nehru-Indira Gandhi have shown total bankruptcy in leading the party on the basis of a social agenda ... The Congress has failed to identify itself with the new aspirations of the emerging and assertive groups. The Congress cut a sorry figure before V.P. Singh on the Mandal issue in 1990 ..

The party leadership fell flat before the rising tide of the forces of Hindutva because Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Sitaram Kesri and Sonia Gandhi and other leaders did not mobilise the masses in defence of their own philosophy of secularism. The Congress tried  to beat the forces of Hindutva by accepting a mild form of Hindutva and in the process the ideology of secularism was abandoned in favour of petty political tactics to deal with aggressive political Hinduism. Further, Congress has been shy of publicly defending its new economic policy.

The Congress of the 1990s has witnessed a total abandonment of programmatic politics for social reconstruction and the Congress leadership during the 1990s has been occupied in 'palace conspiracies' and individual advancement ... 'Renewal' of a crisis-ridden party is always dependent on its ideological revision and reformulation ... In an awakened democratic society like India of 1998, the political conspirators of the Congress will be responsible for its liquidation ...                                                     (Source: The Hindustan Times, March 31, 1998)