While past experiments by Congress to revive the party in UP came a cropper, some leaders feel this time there is a genuine opportunity. The strategy involves pitching Rahul Gandhi as the face of Congress, marking a shift from the Priyanka Gandhi Vadra-driven campaigns in the past, said the leaders involved in the preparations. Besides the “political and social limits” of SP, they said there is a “churning within the Dalit electorate” due to BSP chief Mayawati keeping a low profile, providing an opening to Congress.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections in UP exposed the vulnerability of the ruling BJP, which will face the 2027 assembly polls with its state government’s decade-long incumbency issues, according to Congress strategists. They feel that SP’s Muslim-Yadav plank has reached a saturation point and that the Muslim community in UP “is now increasingly amenable” to Congress as a “national alternative” to BJP, something that they said SP would have to acknowledge and accommodate ‘to strengthen’ the alliance. They also pointed out that SP’s attitude towards Congress in some state elections, including West Bengal, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, was “not in line with the ‘dharma’ of an ally”.
Besides, UP Congress leaders are working to woo sections of non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) and extremely backward castes (EBCs), which are looking for an alternative to BJP but are resistant to SP. The party feels that sections of general castes are also disillusioned with the state BJP government. The state congress will soon hold a series of interactions with EBCs, OBCs, farmers and workers.
When asked about the preparations for UP elections, AICC general secretary in-charge Avinash Pandey told ET, “In 2024 Lok Sabha polls in UP, Congress had to accommodate the INDIA bloc allies and therefore could contest only 17 seats, of which we won six, while losing some other seats to manipulations. Since then, UP Congress, especially Rahulji, has been consistently campaigning on the issue of social justice, especially of Dalits, OBCs and EBCs, besides taking up the cause of Muslims, farmers and workers. We have reinforced the organisational structure of the state party. So, Congress will fight UP assembly elections by rallying larger social and electoral sections.”
Equally, UP Congress leaders feel that the long political hibernation of BSP chief Mayawati has made the Dalit base of her party restive and that many of them are moving towards Congress. “Congress respects Mayawatiji as a senior leader. But at the same time, she has to get active, as Congress under Rahulji has done, in fighting against the attacks on the Constitution,” Pandey said.
Working on Non-BJP alternative
Even as the Congress leadership termed “unauthorised” two of its functionaries recently turning up at Mayawati’s residence uninvited, and thus failing to meet her, many party leaders feel the BSP chief would have to get active in “joining the people’s aspirations for a non-BJP alternative in UP” or risk her party base looking for a credible alternative.
