This shift was under way long before the recent election. There has been no prime minister with the name Gandhi since 1989, when then–Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul’s father, lost an election. When the Congress did return to power in 1991, following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, it was under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, whose government is credited with ushering in economic reforms. The party was out of power from 1996 to 2004, and when it returned, the finance minister in Rao’s government, Manmohan Singh, was named prime minister. Singh had the strong backing of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul’s mother and Rajiv’s Italian-born widow, and headed the government for the next decade. His party introduced several reforms, but was hamstrung in its second term by corruption, cronyism, and a perceived lack of economic progress. When elections came around in 2014, the question wasn’t whether the BJP would win, but by how much. In the end it wasn’t even close: The BJP and its allies won an absolute majority in Parliament. The Congress was decimated at the polls.

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In the run-up to these latest polls, Gandhi—who had long been ridiculed in the press and on social media as inept—had begun to garner notice for his apparent ability to connect with voters, his quick repartees, and his positive messaging. The Congress and its allies easily defeated the BJP in several state elections, leading to predictions that the 2019 parliamentary elections would be different for the Congress. The result, however, was almost the same as it was five years ago.

One possible reason for this is that while the Congress Party has inexorably linked itself to the Gandhi family, Indian voters have moved on. This is a young country where half the 1.3 billion people are under the age of 27. The overwhelming majority of them are from modest backgrounds. In such circumstances, the story of Modi, the son of a tea vendor who, with no political godfather, became the most powerful Indian prime minister in decades, is a far more compelling narrative than that of Rahul Gandhi, a man who has seemingly had success hand-delivered to him.

Another possible reason is that Indian voters prioritize performance, rather than the lineage of a candidate—in fact, several regional political families won resounding victories in these elections. For whatever reason, the Congress Party, which has ruled India for 51 out of 71 years of independence, and the Gandhis, who have ruled for 36 of those years, no longer seem to fit the bill.

Either way, the BJP cemented its hold on power, Gandhi proved unable to challenge Modi, and his party couldn’t make inroads in states it had been expected to. Gandhi offered to quit, but his party refused to accept his resignation. Seven decades after the nation’s independence, the Congress seems unable to break its ties to the Gandhi family—even if the rest of the country has no such problem.