Honest, intelligent and open to new ideas is how officials of India's main opposition Congress describe their leader, Rahul Gandhi, but the party's election performance has been so poor he now risks losing even his family's traditional seat.
As vote-counting trends on Thursday showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party winning 285 seats against just 53 for Congress, current and former party officials blamed a lackluster campaign and a failure to overhaul its top team.
"If they want to change anything, change the leadership," said a Congress official in the western state of Rajasthan, referring to the old guard around Gandhi. "You need to give young people a chance."