Explain the main factors responsible for rise and fall of congress party's dominance in India
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The Indian National Congress (About this soundpronunciation (help·info); often called the Congress Party or simply Congress, abbr. INC) is a political party in India with widespread roots.[20] Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa.[a][21] From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement.[22] Congress led India to independence from Great Britain,[b][23][c][24] and powerfully influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.[d][21]
Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, along with the Bharatiya Janata Party.[25] Congress is a "big tent" party whose social democratic platform is generally considered in the centre to centre-left of Indian politics.[7][13] Congress social policy is based upon the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya–the lifting up of all sections of society–which involves the improvement of the lives of economically underprivileged and socially marginalised people.[26][27] On social and economic issues, it advocates social justice, equality, welfare state, along with secular society.[10][9]
After India's independence in 1947, Congress formed the union government of India and many state governments of India.[28] Congress became India's dominant political party; as of 2019, in the 17 general elections since independence, it has won an outright majority on seven occasions and has led the ruling coalition a further three times, heading the central government for more than 54 years. There have been six Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964), and the most recent Manmohan Singh (2004–2014). Although it did not fare well in the last two general elections in India in 2014 and 2019, it remains one of two major, nationwide, political parties in India, along with the right-wing, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).[e][29] In the 2014 general election, Congress had its poorest post-independence general election performance, winning only 44 seats of the 543-member Lok Sabha—the lower house of the Parliament of India.
From 2004 to 2014, United Progressive Alliance, a coalition of Congress with several regional parties, formed the Indian government led by Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister as the head of the coalition government. The leader of the party during the period, Sonia Gandhi has served the longest term as the president of the party. As of July 2019, the party is in power in six legislative assemblies: Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra (as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi), and the union territory of Puducherry (in an alliance with Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam).