On April 17, Nepal’s Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s decision to accept the Central Working Committee elected at a special convention of the Nepali Congress (NC), handing youth leader Gagan Kumar Thapa a decisive legal victory over the faction led by former party president Sher Bahadur Deuba. Thapa had organised the convention in the aftermath of last year’s Gen Z movement, unseating Deuba who had led the party for a decade. However, the verdict settles only the legal dispute. The harder question is whether Thapa can reverse a decades-long organisational decline that the March 5 elections exposed with unusual brutality. The party won only 38 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives, and only 18 of those were through the ‘first past the post’ electoral system – its worst performance in history. The convention, which Deuba’s faction had challenged before the Election Commission and then in court, elected Thapa to lead the party until the regular convention, expected later in September. Also read: Split In Nepal’s Largest Party Raises Doubts Over Conduct of March 5 PollsThe election commission had accepted the updated list of the Central Working Committee just before the March 5 elections. Despite the internal split, many senior leaders who had opposed the convention contested the elections under Thapa’s leadership. The Deuba faction has since been conducting parallel activities under Purna Bahadur Khadka, to whom Deuba handed executive authority after being seriously injured during the Gen Z protests and beginning a period of medical treatment.Reasons behind Nepali Congress’s fallSince its establishment in India in 1946, intra-party conflict has been a defining characteristic of NC. In the 1950s, there were disputes between NC founder B.P. Koirala and his brother Matrika Prasad Koirala. During the 30-year Rana regime, the party remained relatively united. The party played a leading role in the establishment of democracy in 1950, the overthrow of the party-less panchayat regime in 1990, and the political movement of 2006-2007 that ultimately abolished the 240-year-old monarchy. It secured a two-thirds majority in the 1959 parliamentary elections, the first general election held in Nepal, and won majority votes again in 1991 and 1999. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, it emerged as the largest party, though it was denied the prime minister’s post. After the 1990s, the party led multiple governments, often in coalition with communist and other parties. Yet, each period in government left the party organisationally weaker than before, as leaders prioritised holding power over building durable structures. The party’s record in Nepal’s democratic history is substantial, but it has consistently failed to translate that legacy into lasting organisational strength.The majority government led by Girija Prasad Koirala was toppled in 1993 before completing its five-year term. During the mid-term elections that year, several senior leaders alleged that Girija Prasad Koirala worked to defeat Krishna Prasad Bhattarai in Kathmandu Constituency-1. In the 1999 elections, though the party won a majority in the 205-member House of Representatives, intra-party conflict led to Bhattarai’s removal from the prime ministership, with Girija Prasad Koirala taking over. This pattern of internal betrayal and factional feuding became a major driver of Nepal’s chronic political instability. Over four decades, NC received multiple opportunities to lead governments but squandered them through internal rifts, steadily eroding public trust. Factionalism spread from the grassroots to the central level, with multiple parallel groupings operating simultaneously and crippling the party’s organisational strength.Sher Bahadur Deuba’s regimeThe Deuba years marked a distinct and more damaging phase of this decline. After Deuba assumed party leadership in 2016, little attention was paid to strengthening party structures. Key organisational departments were not formed on time, and internal elections at various levels were repeatedly delayed or bypassed. Internal conflict spread to the grassroots, leaving local cadres frustrated with the leadership’s working style and its pattern of concentrating decisions within a narrow circle. Also read: Nepali Congress Faces Internal Crisis Ahead of March 5 ElectionsCorruption scandals involving senior leaders damaged the party’s credibility further. The leadership favoured wealthy individuals who could provide financial support, sidelining long-time activists from the panchayat era who had built the party’s base over decades. Principled members at the grassroots became increasingly passive, and in many constituencies, the party’s local presence weakened to the point where it could no longer mobilise effectively. Cadres were also unhappy with the decision to ally with the Maoists, a party that had waged an armed insurgency against the state and whose cadres had clashed violently with NC workers in the past. That alliance was seen by many in the party not as a pragmatic adjustment but as an abandonment of principle.Leaders like Thapa maintained an internal opposition role, but their influence within the party remained limited. Deuba held a near-complete monopoly over key decision-making bodies, including the Central Working Committee, and appointments to party positions were made on the basis of personal loyalty rather than organisational merit. A small group of leaders effectively dominated the party from 1990 onwards, discouraging the rise of younger figures. Positions were largely held by leaders above 70, while those in their 40s and 50s were routinely passed over.Beyond internal management, the party also lost its strategic direction. Over the past 15 years, NC’s influence in national politics declined steadily as communist parties came to dominate both domestic affairs and Nepal’s external relations. During this period, Deuba led the government twice, for brief periods, mainly to conduct elections. The party often supported either the Maoists or the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML), focusing on retaining a share of power rather than strengthening its own organisation.Over the past decade, CPN-UML Chairman K.P. Sharma Oli shaped Nepal’s international relations, including with neighbouring countries, while NC rarely asserted an independent position. This approach cost the party the international goodwill it had long enjoyed. Even when technically in opposition, the NC leadership aligned itself with those in power rather than playing an adversarial role. When Oli led a communist government in 2018, NC aligned with it rather than holding the government to account.The 2017 parliamentary elections were an early signal of the party’s weakening. Due to an electoral alliance between the Maoists and the CPN-UML, NC suffered a heavy defeat, winning only 63 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives. Instead of addressing internal weaknesses, the leadership focused on electoral strategies, including alliances with former rivals. This approach helped the party emerge as the largest party in 2022, but it was still denied the prime minister’s post. The leadership continued to prioritise electoral outcomes over organisational repair, and the gap between the central leadership and the party’s base widened further.Gen Z movementThe Gen Z movement of September 8-9 last year broke this pattern from within. Calls grew for leadership change and for younger figures to take charge. The Thapa-led group demanded a convention before the March 5 elections. Deuba and his supporters strongly opposed the move. The Thapa faction proceeded regardless, organising a special convention and electing a new leadership.In the party’s more-than-seven-decade history, it was a historically significant internal revolt. Thapa, who is in his early fifties, embraced the demands of the Gen Z protesters and has now secured the legal battle. But the party he leads remains deeply fragmented.Several structural threats now compound the internal challenge. If the Deuba-led faction, currently operating under Khadka, refuses to accept Thapa’s leadership and moves toward forming a separate party, NC will weaken further and its already thin parliamentary presence will be divided.The more consequential long-term threat, however, may come from outside. Since 1990, NC’s primary political competition has been with communist parties. The liberal democratic space it occupied had no serious rival for three decades, and voters who rejected communist parties had little alternative but to turn to NC.The rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party, the ruling government, changes that calculation in a fundamental way. RSP, which draws heavily on younger voters and urban constituencies, occupies a broadly liberal and reformist position that overlaps significantly with the ideological ground NC has traditionally claimed.Also read: Nepal’s New PM Signals Continuity in First Foreign Policy OutlineIn the March 5 elections, RSP performed strongly while NC suffered its worst result. Scores of NC leaders and cadres backed RSP openly, and in several constituencies RSP candidates defeated NC incumbents. If RSP governs effectively, delivers on anti-corruption commitments, and demonstrates that a newer liberal democratic force can function without the factional pathologies that have plagued NC, it could consolidate that support permanently. However, if NC fails to hold its organisation together, local leaders are likely to switch to RSP to improve their electoral prospects, further accelerating the erosion.NC’s poor performance in the latest national election despite the leadership change signals a failure that goes beyond factional politics. It points to a deeper loss of relevance among younger voters, a matter requiring serious reflection from the new leadership. If Thapa adopts an inclusive approach that draws in wider sections of the party, a revival remains possible. If he follows the pattern of past leaders, marked by weakened internal democracy, poor organisational management, and power concentrated in a small inner circle, recovery will be difficult. The party’s future depends on whether he can rise above that pattern and accommodate the broader factions that NC will need to survive.