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Who is the median Congress/BJP swing voter? Obviously there are urban elites who may lean toward or against Hindu nationalism ideologically, but I’m talking more about the average Indian voter who might conceivably switch between the parties. Where do they live? What are their politics or priorities?
There isn't an archetypical swing voter.
Indian politics has become massively polarized over religion. It's a very rare Muslim indeed who would vote for the BJP, and the ones they have are the equivalent of affirmative action hires (see, we don't plan to kill you, just make you second class citizens).
The Congress stuck around this long largely by inertia from being the guys who achieved independence, which is worth something I guess. Most of their Hindu voters jumped ship as soon as the BJP came to prominence, though I don't recall the specifics of the reversal in 2004. Presumably there are some people out there who preferred Congress policies.
In terms of said policies, they're not particularly different. Both are fiscally liberal. The BJP is ethnonationalist and Hindu supremacist, and they don't need to tone it down with their grip on power. It's a bit more socially conservative, but neither are going to ban abortion. As OP accurately states, the Congress lit their own ass on fire, they were engaging in their own share of identity politics, especially to keep the Muslim vote, they just muttered secular incantations as they did so.
We're so fucked.
So the BJP has a Vice grip on power given India’s Hindu majority, at least until such time as the congress manages to appeal to more Hindus. Are there secular Hindus, or Hindu minority groups, which could be peeled off, or does the congress have any other Avenue back to power than massive vote rigging or once in a generation public incompetence by the BJP?
I don't see the BJP being overthrown in the foreseeable future.
As OP outlined, the Congress has largely lost all credibility, especially since they're unable to jettison the Gandhis.
I don't think there's much of a moderate vote left, secular Hindus, while mildly peeved at the BJP for the violation of secularism, are otherwise mostly content because more material policies don't differ much between parties. Pretty much everyone is a fiscal liberal with socialist ideals, even the moribund communist party.
The biggest, and yet still minor threat to them is if more regional parties gain prominence and band together. Unfortunately, many of said regional parties are even more ethnonationalist than the BJP.
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There were two factors that worked in Congress's favour.
In retrospective if instead of trying to centrist, they fully embraced Hindu Nationalism, that may have helped BJP win power. That's the reason why the current BJP is so keen on first consolidating its Hindu Nationalist base. It's not like they need to tone it down to keep their grip on power, its because they don't tone it down that they have power in the first place.
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