Book blames Indira for damage to Cong's electoral base in UP

"She (Gandhi) attempted to reach down to the bottom level and restructure the party from the top into an 'oligarchy' controlled with the help of her close aides. This led to the breakdown of the 'machine' character of Congress, which had been the strength of the party in some states.

...By the mid-1980s, considerable damage had occurred to the organisation and electoral base of the party from which it has not yet fully recovered. Her attempt to control the party led to absence of internal democracy leading to collapse of branches of the party in key states such as UP," the fifth volume of the series 'A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress' said.

The volume brought out by a group of editors, headed by senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee, to commemorate 125 years of the organisation narrates and analyses a wide variety of issues which affected the Congress party and in turn impinged on the national issues.

In the preface to the book, Mukherjee noted that Congress desired the volume to be edited and contributed by experts in order to generate an "objective and scholarly perspective for the period under review and "not necessarily have a party perspective".

The views expressed by the authors in the volume, therefore do not reflect the views of the Congress party. It is not an official history of the Congress between 1964 and 1984, according to Mukherjee.