Still headless, UP Cong hibernates as SP, BSP, BJP rev up for coming polls

Lallu had himself lost the poll from his Tamkuhi Raj constituency in Kushinagar district. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) leadership has however still not appointed Lallu’s successor even after three-and-a-half months.

Recently, the Congress did not field its candidates for the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls, which may lead to, party insiders say, the shifting of its remaining loyal voters to other parties there.

In the run-up to the February-March Assembly polls, the AICC general secretary in charge of UP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, used to travel to different parts of UP regularly to attend various party events or to meet victims of various crimes. But after leading a spirited election campaign, Priyanka has so far visited UP only once for a party meeting.

The UP Congress spokesperson, Surendra Rajpoot, however claimed that the party leadership would announce the new UPCC chief over the next few days. Rajpoot denied that the party has switched to an inactive mode. “Party is pro-active on public issues. We are doing follow-ups on the decisions taken during the Chintan Shivir (Udaipur brainstorming conclave) and programmes are being planned accordingly,” he claimed.

Rajpoot also said the Congress was planning to take out yatras for janjagran (public awareness) across UP from August 9 to highlight the “failures” of the BJP government in UP and at the Centre on all fronts.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, then AICC president Rahul Gandhi had lost his own seat from the Amethi constituency, with the party now facing the challenge to maintain its hold on its sole UP seat, Rae Bareli, the constituency of party chief Sonia Gandhi, in the 2024 general elections.

Also, for the first time ever, the Congress will have no member in the UP Legislative Council as its lone MLC, Deepak Singh, retired on Wednesday and the party with just two MLAs is not in a position to send any of its nominees to the state’s Upper House now.

As regards other Opposition parties, SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who had been earlier confined to social media following the Assembly election defeat, swung into action last Sunday – days after the party’s shock defeat to the BJP in its strongholds of Azamgarh and Rampur constituencies in the bypolls – as he dissolved the party’s national, state, and district executive bodies, including its youth, traders, spokespersons, and women’s wings. The party will reconstitute all these bodies, for which Akhilesh launched a mega membership drive Tuesday.

“With this membership drive, the SP has taken a step towards a major change in the organisation with an eye on 2024 Lok Sabha elections and 2027 Assembly elections. Membership drive will give strength to the organisation,” said the SP’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary.

Akhilesh said he will himself go to the villages as part of this membership drive. The SP had won 111 seats in the Assembly polls as against 47 seats in the 2017 Assembly polls.

Months after the BSP was routed in the Assembly polls ending up with just one seat, party supremo Mayawati last week restructured the organisation by removing three state in-charges and restoring the zonal system by dividing all 18 divisions in UP into six zones. With a party in-charge to be appointed for every zone, there will be also a coordinator for each division called “mandal coordinator”.

Mayawati has also assigned the party organisation the task of making one lakh new members in every Assembly segment. After the Assembly poll outcome, Mayawati has held three meetings of top BSP functionaries in Lucknow to review the party’s preparations for the coming elections.

The ruling BJP has continued to be in a pro-active mode, setting a new goal to win 75 of the state’s total 80 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general elections. The saffron party has launched the “booth shashaktikaran abhiyan” (booth strengthening campaign) for the booths where its performance was considered “weak” in the 2019 elections. The leadership has assigned 100 such booths to each Lok Sabha member or a Rajya Sabha MP to beef up the party’s presence there. It has also appointed an in-charge for each Lok Sabha seat it lost in 2019.