Alex Travelli , Hari Kumar and Pragati K.B. May 6, 2026 — 7:30pm When Narendra Modi first campaigned to lead the country, more than a decade ago, he raised the slogan of a “Congress-free India”, plotting the elimination of his only national opposition. Congress, the founding party of independent India, has since withered. It has hardly recovered from 2014, when its seats in the national parliament slumped from 206 to just 44 in one election. It lost its grip on state legislatures, too, and now controls only four states to the 21 held by Modi’s governing alliance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre) waves to supporters celebrating the BJP’s victory in the recently held state assembly elections. AP Its decline left regional parties across India as the most important counterweight to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist agenda. Their leaders ranged against him in the north, south, east and west.…