When Naren­dra Modi rammed into the coun­try’s fed­eral pol­i­tics in 2014, Con­gress was rul­ing in nine states. Next time, Modi makes a bid for the new Cen­tral Vista PMO, Con­gress­men fear the party might not be in power in any state.

With Pun­jab gone, and its hopes in Ut­tarak­hand and Ma­nipur dashed, the par­ty’s foot­print has al­ready shrunk to Ra­jasthan and Chhat­tis­garh, and both states will be go­ing to hus­tings next year.

The Con­gress is star­ing at a cri­sis of cred­i­bil­ity and lead­er­ship, the stan­dard lines about re-in­vent­ing the party have be­come bor­ing, a sense of de­spair is loom­ing large and an in­ter­nal up­heaval might even split the party.

Watch this de­bate (click video) where se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh en­gages po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists Prof Ashutosh Ku­mar and Prof Mohd Khalid, both from Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh, about the State of the Con­gress.

The likes of Ra­machan­dra Guha are now de­clar­ing from the rooftops that Gand­his will pull the Con­gress down, and the party must get rid of them. An op­pos­ing line of ar­gu­ment says Gand­his are the only glue the party has, and with­out them, there will be no Con­gress.

Ghu­lam Nabi Azad has said “my heart is bleed­ing.” Shashi Tha­roor is re­peat­ing his call for lead­er­ship re­form the umpteenth time. A bold ex­per­i­ment like Navjot Sidhu and Cha­ran­jit Singh Channi has failed mis­er­ably, and Priyanka Gand­hi’s 209 ral­lies and road­shows in Ut­tar Pradesh haven’t helped at all.

With the AAP, which dec­i­mated it in Pun­jab, now threat­en­ing to take over its space in Hi­machal Pradesh, Gu­jarat and many other places, the party is in an ex­is­ten­tial cri­sis. Af­ter 137 years, will it ever again be a force to reckon with?

Calls for Gand­his to call it a day are grow­ing louder. Small time chief­tains are now feel­ing em­bold­ened enough to ques­tion the first fam­ily whose abil­ity to com­mand and con­trol is un­der se­ri­ous doubt.

With just 56 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 34 in the Ra­jya Sabha, and se­ri­ous doubts about abil­ity of So­nia, Rahul and Priyanka as vote catch­ers, will Con­gress be able to over­come the sense of hope­less­ness? And will it do so by get­ting rid­ding of the Gand­his, or by falling back upon them?