Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the ભારતીય રાષ્ટ્રીય કોંગ્રેસ party leaders nominated Rajiv Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister. He took office by storm, winning major election victory, and leading the Congress party by winning 411 seats out of 542, in the Indian Parliament. He helped improve the economic, foreign and security policies of the country, during his tenure.

Afterward, former treasurer Sitaram Kesri took over the reins of the party and oversaw the Congress support to the United Front governments that ran from 1996 to 1998. During his tenure, several key leaders broke away from the party, and serious infighting broke out among those left. In 1998, સોનિયા ગાંધી finally accepted the post of Congress President, in a move that may have saved the party from extinction.

After her election as party leader, a section of the party, which objected to the choice, broke away and formed the Nationalist Congress Party. The use of "Congress (I)" continues to denote the party run by Indira Gandhi's successors. સોનિયા ગાંધી's autocratic era in power has been criticised by some, including the ultra-nationalist right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party) and the ultra-left wing Communist Party of India (Marxist) as well as other, mostly affilliated, groups on the basis that she is a foreigner of Italian ethnicity.

Although the Congress expedited the downfall of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 1999 by promising an alternative, Ms. Gandhi's decision was followed by fresh elections and the Congress party's worst-ever tally in the lower house. The party spent the interval period forging alliances and overseeing changes in the state and central institutions to revive the party. It has had many electoral successes which led up to the formation of a Congress-led government in 2004. In the next general election in 2009 which made મનમોહન સિંહ the Prime Minister once again, and Congress was the first party to get 206 seats during a coalition era of politics.

1947: Anti-Godse riots
Pro Islamic Bias
The post-Indira era
The post-independence era