Number Theory: How Congress lost the plot and slumped to its lowest Maharashtra tally

The Congress now has just 16 MLAs in the new Maharashtra assembly, its lowest every tally in India’s second largest state by number of Lok Sabha MPs. The Congress’s decimation in Maharashtra — there is no other way to describe this performance — comes on the back of a long-term process of marginalisation of India’s grand old party in the western state. Here are three charts which explain this in detail and why recovering from here will not be an easy task.