While the Congress may not have fared well in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the party is hopeful of making inroads in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with a focus on Dalits, Muslims and Most Backward Classes (MBCs). The grand old party feels this social engineering will ensure good results in the largest state of the country, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats. Senior Congress leaders say the party has already started working on the formula of Dalits plus Muslims and MBCs, and has started outreach programmes in this regard across the state, where it is also making people aware of the “need for a caste census”. In the recent Karnataka election, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had spoken in support of a caste census, saying that the existing 50 per cent reservation cap must be lifted. In UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has also focused its 2024 Lok Sabha poll campaign on the demand for a caste census. “One of our top leaders has said our party supports the demand for a caste census. Hence, in UP too, this will be a major part of our campaign this time,” said Anil Yadav, UP Congress Committee (UPCC) organisation secretary. Yadav said the party began wooing MBC castes like Lonia, Rajbhar, Nishad, Kushwaha, Kumhar and others five months ago. “We have held several meetings in eastern and central UP, and have received a positive response from influential members of these communities who attended the programmes,” said Yadav. The Congress, which once used to get the support of the upper castes, knows that this may irk the Savarna communities. “We know if we talk of lifting the cap on reservations, it will anger upper caste communities. But political parties have traditionally formed such social equations in the past, and have succeeded. Take the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the SP, for example. Sometimes, we have to make a choice. We don’t need everyone’s vote to succeed in elections,” said a senior Congress leader. Yadav said the BJP has won elections in UP with the support of MBC communities, but the people are suffering because the party has become “arrogant”. “Their success in UP is because of these communities. Because they have rallied behind the BJP, it has been in power for a long stretch of time. Now, it is facing huge anti-incumbency. People are fed up as there are no jobs, and inflation is high. No one can deny this. So we are confident that these MBC communities will support us and give us good results in 2024,” he said. While the Congress has counted Muslims as part of its social formula for 2024, the community has traditionally supported the SP. In the 2022 UP polls, it became evident from the results that the Muslim community was with the SP, with the party performing well in the Muslim-dominated seats. Congress leaders feel the equation on the ground has changed, and that the SP is gradually losing Muslim support. “Muslims are fed up with Akhilesh Yadav. He doesn’t speak on their issues, doesn’t visit them in their houses when they are attacked. When the anti-CAA movement happened in UP, 20 people were killed by policemen. Akhilesh didn’t visit a single family,” said Shahnawaz Alam, president of the UP Congress minority wing. Alam said during the campaign for 2024, the Congress will tell Muslims that it is the only party that can defeat the BJP. “When Muslims voted for us in the past, we succeeded in UP. Their votes are being wasted since the time they shifted to the BSP and the SP,” he said. “We will make people aware of these issues and tell them how the SP and other parties are cheating them,” said Alam. A Congress leader said even the top Muslim leadership within the SP is unhappy with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. “Do you think Azam Khan is happy? Or Shafiqur Rahman Barq? Or S T Hasan? When these top leaders, who have been with the SP for ages, are openly saying the party has betrayed them, think of common Muslims. Like these leaders, even people are looking for an alternative, and there is nothing better than the Congress, because the 2024 elections are for the Centre, not the state,” said the Congress leader. The third community the Congress is trying to reach out to, are the Dalits — who have been with the BSP in UP for several decades. Congress leaders feel Dalits have been shortchanged as the BSP – which they vote for — has failed to uproot the BJP. “Dalits in UP are unhappy with the BJP. And the BSP seems to be with the BJP. Everyone knows that. At police stations, cases are not lodged against upper castes on complaints from Dalits. People who suffer from all this, every day, want it to end, and are looking at the Congress,” said another Congress leader. Speaking to The Indian Express, UP Congress president Brijlal Khabri said, “Rahul Gandhi has already supported the call for a caste census. Dalits of this state and the country know the Congress has appointed a Dalit as its president. We think the community will help us perform well.” The Congress has faced humiliating defeats in recent polls in UP. In 2019, the party won just one Lok Sabha seat, when even Rahul Gandhi lost Amethi, a seat his family has represented for decades. In the 2022 Assembly polls, the Congress managed to win just two seats out of the 403 it contested, despite a spirited campaign led by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Yet, the Congress is hopeful that it will be different this time. “In 2022, we fought hard but lost. It was a state election. This time, the fight is for the Centre, and to defeat the BJP and install a Congress government in New Delhi. People of UP are looking for change because of rampant unemployment and inflation. We won Karnataka and hope to win other state polls before 2024. Then we hope to do well in 2024 in UP as well,” said Khabri.
