Assembly Elections Results 2022: Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were only star campaigners in these elections.
The Congress today dived to a new low in state elections, managing only 54 of 690 seats spread across five states.
This means only 7.8 per cent of the seats at play in these state elections went to the Congress, India's oldest party.
The Congress today lost Punjab and failed to make a comeback in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
In Uttar Pradesh, with a vote share of just 2.3 per cent, the Congress is looking to win only two seats, despite a high-voltage campaign by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra - the party's UP in-charge - and Rahul Gandhi.
With its rapidly shrinking political space, the Congress now rules only two big states - Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
In Maharashtra, it is in a coalition with the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Both the Gandhis acknowledged the drubbing on Twitter.
Rahul Gandhi said the party would learn from these election results.
"Humbly accept the people's verdict. Best wishes to those who have won the mandate. My gratitude to all Congress workers and volunteers for their hard work and dedication. We will learn from this and keep working for the interests of the people of India," he wrote on Twitter.
Priyanka Gandhi said party workers and leaders had worked hard but failed to convert it into votes.
"The vote of the people is paramount in a democracy. Our workers and leaders worked hard, established the organisation, fought on the issues of the people. But, we were not able to convert our hard work into votes," Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.
"The Congress party, for the betterment of UP and the people, will continue to fulfil the duty of a combative opposition by following a positive agenda," she said.
The Congress's poor show will once again spotlight the Gandhis and questions on their leadership.
Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were the only star campaigners in these elections.
They are likely to face questions over decisions like the eleventh-hour replacement of Amarinder Singh as Punjab Chief Minister and the portrayal of Charanjit Singh Channi as a Dalit leader, which apparently backfired.
Leaders of the G-23 - the 23 dissidents who wrote to Sonia Gandhi asking for a visible and full-time leadership of the party and sweeping organisational changes - again pitched for change today.
"All of us who believe in Congress are hurting from the results of the recent assembly elections. It is time to reaffirm the idea of India that the Congress has stood for and the positive agenda it offers the nation," wrote Shashi Tharoor, a member of that group.
"And to reform our organisational leadership in a manner that will reignite those ideas and inspire the people. One thing is clear - Change is unavoidable if we need to succeed," he tweeted.