Despite challenges, efforts on to revive Congress in Uttar Pradesh

Delivering a pep talk to party colleagues on June 1, following the crushing defeat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly elections earlier this year, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra unhesitatingly said the outfit had failed to connect with the people.

Vadra, who is in charge of UP, was seeking to provide a vision to a perceptibly rudderless party rank and file ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, which are two years away. Besides, the elections to the state local bodies are due in the coming months.

To make matters worse, the party has yet not announced its UP unit president after the incumbent, Ajay Kumar Lallu, resigned.

According to sources, the party is engrossed in the caste- and age-profile arithmetic to arrive at a consensus candidate for the post. There have been suggestions to bifurcate UP into sub-regions with each block headed by a party president. This is for more effective leadership and organisational efficiency.

Narayan Dutt Tiwari, who demitted office in December 1989, was the last Congress chief minister in UP before caste-based political parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged on the state’s political firmament.

Since then the Congress has been going downhill in UP, with no respite seemingly in sight.

The recent exit of top UP Congress leaders, including Jitin Prasada and R P N Singh, both of whom were considered close to former party president Rahul Gandhi, has further dented the public image of the party.

After Vadra was put in charge of UP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she has been working tirelessly to revive the party, although without success in elections. While her roadshows and public meetings gather attention and media space, that has not translated into seat gains.

In the recent UP polls, the party could win only two seats, down from even the paltry seven in 2017. Despite such challenges, the Congress is hopeful of getting back to its winning ways in the coming polls.

“We have identified the major factors that led to our defeat in the UP elections. We will work on these areas and reorganise our team. This process will gain momentum after the UP Congress president is announced by the leadership … things will start moving much faster from July onwards,” senior party leader and former UP legislator Akhilesh Pratap Singh told Business Standard.

He said Vadra would visit the different constituencies in the state to reinvigorate the party cadre and boost their morale.

However, there are trials and tribulations for the Congress, especially after the rise of the saffron party at the Centre and in the state. Besides, the SP and BSP have long eaten into the Congress’ traditional vote banks of Muslims and Dalits, respectively.

At the same time, the public positions taken by the party on issues of women, inflation, corruption, and secularism have not cut ice with the electorate.

“The Congress is the oldest political party and has a rich legacy. It is perhaps best positioned to offer a political alternative to masses in the current circumstances if it desists from the negative narratives that it generally stokes during election times,” political commentator and sociologist A P Tiwari said.

He said the party should acknowledge that people were no longer interested in pure political rhetoric, but they were amenable to supporting a party that proactively reaches out to voters with fresh ideas and a definite road map.

Meanwhile, the health of her mother and the party president, Sonia Gandhi, as well as the ongoing Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe into the National Herald episode, has kept Vadra away from the state for the past few weeks. This is again causing frustration among state party leaders.

The BJP has successfully articulated its ideology among the masses, but the Congress has failed to match up despite being the party of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sardar Patel, Vadra had said at her UP conclave. This pretty much sums up the acid test that the outfit is to face in times to come.