Face of Congress Samvidhan campaign skips rungs to become its new OBC wing chief

The appointment came two days after the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session held in Ahmedabad passed a resolution to usher in organisational reforms, and reiterated the party’s OBC outreach. Party insiders said more such appointments may be on the way as part of a major organisational restructuring, which the Congress had also announced at its Belagavi AICC session before Ahmedabad.

Jaihind, a Yadav leader, has lately been active in poll-bound Bihar where Samvidhan Sammelans have been held. He speaks Voltaire and the French Revolution and, about his plans to reach the backward classes, says: “Voltaire says that if the slaves know they are slaves, they will themselves break free the shackles of slavery. People from the OBC community and other oppressed sections don’t know how they are being exploited by the communal ideology of the BJP. That is all we have to do.”

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

However, Jaihind knows it may take more than that, and talks about focusing on party organisation, holding gatherings, and “developing good orators and helping them with content”.

His first task though may be containing the fallout from the sudden removal of Ajay Singh Yadav as the OBC Department chief. The Haryana leader got the news on Thursday evening while he was in Maharashtra’s Solapur to attend a programme of the Congress OBC wing as the chief guest. He skipped it.

Later in the evening, Yadav posted on ‘X’ that he had been removed “unceremoniously” by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. Deleting one post to put up another 45 minutes later, he said: “This is a conspiracy by a Coterie to humiliate me. I have seen many ups and down in my 40-year political career… I had already resigned but was requested… to withdraw my resignation.”

Yadav claimed that he was “not really surprised” given the weightage being given to “a parallel OBC NGO” led by Jaihind. Tagging Gandhi and Congress general secretary K C Venugopal, he said he would reveal more at a press conference.

Talking to The Indian Express, Yadav said, “How do I know who did what? It is for the party high command to tell me. I have sought time to meet Sonia Gandhi ji, Congress president and Rahul Gandhi ji. I shall meet them and then address a press conference.”

The latest setback to Yadav comes after a series of electoral losses, including the 2014 Haryana Assembly poll defeat from Rewari, and the 2019 Lok Sabha loss from Gurugram. This has been embarrassing for the leader who was once seen as among the tallest political leaders of South Haryana, with five victories from the Rewari Assembly seat (1991 till 2009). In the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Haryana government from 2009 to 2014, Yadav held important portfolios as minister.

He also has strong family connections, with his son Chiranjeev Rao married to RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s daughter Anushka Rao, while his sister is former Justice Nirmal Yadav, who was recently acquitted of cash-at-door charges.

Ahead of Lok Sabha polls last year, Yadav had quit, but later withdrew his resignation. After the October loss of the Congress in the Haryana state polls, which the party expected to win, Yadav had “quit” as OBC wing head, claiming “shabby treatment” by the state Congress leadership.

Jaihind also belongs to a family originally from Haryana, but grew up in Delhi’s Pitampura. His father Surjan Singh Yadav was a freedom fighter and, according to Jaihind, devoted to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. “He considered Netaji his God and would address everyone with ‘Jaihind’. Hence, everyone started calling us the ‘Jaihind family’,” says Jaihind, who was originally named Anil Kumar Yadav.

Having done his MBBS from the University College of Medical Sciences in Delhi in 1978, Jaihind joined Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. It was here that his life took a turn, he says, when his superior introduced him to B P Mandal. Then an MP, Mandal went on to head the Mandal Commission which was entrusted to identify the socially and educationally backward classes by the Janata Party government under Morarji Desai.

Jaihind says that impressed by Mandal, he kept meeting him. “I would listen to him talk about social justice, and started taking part in demonstrations demanding the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations.”

Jaihind joined the Congress before moving on to the Janata Dal in 1992, then headed by Bihar veteran leader Sharad Yadav. A year later, he contested the Delhi Assembly elections from the Nangloi Jat seat. Having lost, he stayed away from electoral politics for more than two decades, before joining Sharad Yadav’s newly formed Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) in 2018. When the party merged with the RJD in 2023, Jaihind says he quit and took up activism again.

He says that it was around then that he got a call from Rahul Gandhi’s office. “I heard the Congress leader speak about caste and ‘mohabbat ki dukan’, and felt he was taking forward the call for social justice. I went to see Rahul Gandhi and the meeting which was scheduled for 10 minutes went on for more than an hour.”

After joining the Congress in February, Jaihind proposed that the Congress hold Samvidhan Sammelans (Constitution Meetings), where instead of addressing common people, Gandhi would address a select group of intellectuals and activists. “What happens in rallies is that local leaders bring in hordes of people, and the message gets lost. That is why I suggested smaller meetings with select people, who are already working on caste oppression,” says Jaihind.

So far, 10 such meetings have been held across the country, with Gandhi attending and addressing them.

Defending the choice of Jaihind two months into his joining the party, a senior Congress leader said: “Our party wants to bring in those who are committed to social justice and won’t compromise on ideology. So, such appointments are going to be regular now.”

Congress sources in Haryana said that Jaihind’s choice is also dictated by the coming Bihar polls, with Jaihind doing some work in the state and the party reaching out to the backward and Dalit votes there.

Claiming “excitement” among social activists over his appointment, Jaihind says: “People have already started realising how the government is cheating them. We have been working in Bihar, and people see the BJP is defrauding them… Our goal is to ensure that the message of Rahul Gandhi reaches the grassroots.”