Cannot authenticate user with Passport Local Strategy - node.js

Question

I am using passport to implement a login function on my application. However, every time I try to authenticate the user, I cannot get passed the authentication and am redirected to the failure URL. I have confirmed that there is a user in the MongoDB database and the user supplied password is correct. However, I cannot get past the passport authentication. Can anyone please help me out ?
This is my index.js
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const path = require('path');
const ejsMate = require('ejs-mate');
const loginRoutes = require("./routes/login");
const User = require('./models/users');
const session = require('express-session');
const userRoutes = require('./routes/user');
const passport = require('passport');
const localStrategy = require('passport-local');
sessionConfig = {
name: "session",
secret: 'BetterSecret',
resave: false,
saveUninitialized: true,
cookie: {
httpOnly: true,
expires: Date.now() + 604800000, //Date.NOW + No. of Miliseconds in the week
maxAge: 604800000
}
};
//Connection strings only beyond this line
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost:27017/myLoc').then(console.log("DB connected")).catch(error => handleError(error));
app.listen(5500, (req, res, next) => {
console.log("Connected");
});
//app.uses
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use("/", loginRoutes);
app.use("/business", userRoutes);
app.engine('ejs', ejsMate);
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views')); //setting up the views directory
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'))); //public directory to serve static content
app.use(session(sessionConfig));
app.use(passport.initialize());
app.use(passport.session());
passport.use(new localStrategy(User.authenticate()));
passport.serializeUser(User.serializeUser());
passport.deserializeUser(User.deserializeUser());
This is the router for the login:
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const users = require('../controllers/users');
const passport = require('passport');
router.route('/login')
.get(users.renderLoginForm)
.post(passport.authenticate('local', { successRedirect: '/', failureRedirect: '/login' }), users.login);
router.route('/register')
.get(users.renderRegisterForm)
.post(users.createNewUser);
module.exports = router;
and for the controller I just have a console.log for now
module.exports.login = (req, res, next) => {
console.log("I am here");
};