India's Sonia and Rahul Gandhi offered to resign after leading the once-dominant Congress party to its worst-ever election defeat last week, only for colleagues to insist the dynasty stay in place.
Congress won just 44 seats in the 543-member parliament in the parliamentary election as the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power with the first majority in 30 years.
Sonia, the 67-year-old Congress party president, entrusted campaigning for the first time to her son and vice president Rahul, whose lacklustre performance failed to convince voters as Congress sought a third term in power.
"They both offered to resign but the party rejected it unanimously," member of parliament Amarinder Singh told reporters on Monday after a meeting of the Congress's top decision-making body in New Delhi.
The Press Trust of India reported that the Congress Working Committee passed a unanimous resolution "expressing full faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi".
The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has provided three prime ministers, including independent India's first, but analysts are increasingly questioning if it is the vote-winner it used to be.
"Economic growth and social mobility have radically transformed how younger Indians think and behave," leading historian Ramachandra Guha wrote in Kolkata-based The Telegraph newspaper at the weekend.
"No longer so deferential or unquestioning, they ask for evidence of Rahul Gandhi's own contributions apart from his family lineage. These are few," he concluded.
The Congress has ruled for all but 13 years of India's post-independence history and has run the country for the last 10 years at the head of the left-leaning coalition.
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