The party hopes to fill the void created by decline of Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party’s inertia and leverage its position as principal challenger to BJP nationally
The party hopes to fill the void created by decline of Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party’s inertia and leverage its position as principal challenger to BJP nationally
After a disastrous performance in the 2022 Assembly election, the Congress in Uttar Pradesh is banking on its new-look State team led by Dalit leader Brijlal Khabri, 61, to revive the party’s fortunes in the politically crucial State by winning back the support of Muslim and Dalit social groups.
The party has been out of power in U.P. since 1989, and barring the unexpected high of the 2009 Lok Sabha election where it came second in the State by winning 21 out of 80 seats, Congress’s story has been one of a steady slide.
Party strategists, however, now believe sections of Muslims and Dalits are disgruntled with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) respectively and could back it in the 2024 Lok Sabha election as the main challenger to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nationally.
“Those voters who were associated or voted for the SP and the BSP will vote for the Congress in 2024 as they have seen that both these parties are the B-team of BJP. They have realised that it is only the Congress party that can defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha poll, hence all those who want to save India will be with the Congress,” Mr. Khabri, the newly appointed U.P. Congress president, told Today News 24. “We will reach out to common voters in the State and expose the BJP’s divisive politics which is ruining the country,” he said.
Mr. Khabri’s appointment makes Congress the only party among the State’s major players to have a Dalit State chief – the BJP, BSP and SP are led by Other Backward Classes (OBC) leaders. Naresh Uttam Patel, a Kurmi, is the SP’s State president, Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, a Jat, helms U.P. BJP while Bhim Rajbhar, a Rajbhar, is BSP’s State chief.
Party insiders said the composition of the revamped Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is primed to draw a revival blueprint by capitalising on the opportunity arising from the decline of the BSP and the successive defeats of the SP at the hands of the BJP, including in the recent Lok Sabha bypolls in Muslim-dominated Azamgarh and Rampur.
Along with Mr. Khabri, the party appointed Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Nakul Dubey, Yogesh Dixit, Anil Yadav, Ajay Rai and Virendra Chaudhary as regional heads. At least four of these seven leaders including Mr. Khabri have roots in the BSP and either been influential Ministers during the terms of the Mayawati-led State government or party MPs; Mr. Siddiqui was once a confidant of Ms. Mayawati and the party’s most prominent Muslim face.
However, the task is easier said than done given the grand old party’s bitter harvest of a measly two seats in the 403-member Assembly and 2.33% vote share earlier this year despite a spirited campaign led by its general secretary in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The numbers are the party’s lowest ever in the State it once ruled for almost four decades.
“Congress has no choice other than trying the old Dalit-Muslim-Brahmin combination and hope for some magic. Its organisational structure has been weak for decades and the party can only hope for a good show in the Lok Sabha election if the core support base of any other Opposition party shifts to it. In 2009, the party got a good result with that old combination,” said social scientist Sumit Kumar of Delhi University, who follows U.P. closely.
