NEW DELHI — On a visit to the rural constituency that has sent him or his relatives to Parliament for decades, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s most powerful political dynasty, was asked a simple question: Can you name five party workers from the area?

The question, asked in a pre-election review meeting two years ago by a party worker unhappy with Mr. Gandhi’s attitude toward politics, led Mr. Gandhi to shrug and admit that he could not name anyone, said a flabbergasted Shakeel Ahmad, 60, a second-generation Indian National Congress party leader in the politically vital state of Uttar Pradesh who was at the meeting.

Mr. Gandhi has represented the area since 2004, “and he does not know a single name?” Mr. Ahmad asked. Politics is the Gandhi family’s business. The clan has produced three prime ministers, including India’s first, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr. Gandhi, long groomed for high office, seems to have inherited few of the political skills for which his forebears were renowned, Mr. Ahmad said.

“Can you teach a fish to swim?” he asked.

The question is being asked with increasing urgency among members of the Indian National Congress, the political party that Mr. Gandhi’s family has led since India’s independence in 1947. The party is staring down what recent polls have predicted will be a landslide for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist organization led by Narendra Modi, one of the most controversial political figures in Indian history.