Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Can Congress win in UP?' that was published in newsband

Can Congress win in UP?

In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election due in early 2017, the Congress is the most scrutinised. it has appointed a new president for its Uttar Pradesh party unit, Raj Babbar, and announced its chief ministerial candidate, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is leading the election campaign.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election Congress managed to win only two seats in the State, those of Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Gandhi’s fighting words that the party is in the hunt for a full majority is fanciful. How will Congress manage to ride out its lack of organizational depth in U.P? Its weakness in U.P is comparable to its position in TN and Bihar. In TN the Cong is traditionally used to riding piggyback on one of the Dravidian parties who alone have substantial voter support and benefiting with seats disproportionate to its own strength. Like that it can join hands in U.P with BSP or SP to win more seats than what it would get on its own. By such arrangement it got 27 seats in Bihar and avoided decimation there. It has now decided to go it alone in U.P. It must be prepared to be content with a low score despite the rejigs in the organization.

For Congress, one family domination should be reduced and local satraps allowed to grow with cadre level workers. If Congress was sincere about democracy, it would be strategising about how to create an effective opposition, not merely joining the fray as in UP, or lending a helping hand to BJP as in Punjab. But these days expecting Congress to strategise about anything seems fanciful. Indians will have to regroup to revive democracy without any help from this family owned political party. The question is who (individually or collectively) can lead this.

The dream of Congress in UP is based on the strategy of Prashant Kishor, the new poster boy of Indian Politics and the poll strategist. His strategy of an amalgam of caste politics (Brahmin Dalit, Muslim support base), event management (Una incident a la Dadri incident), publicity blitzkrieg through ramp walk by Rahul, playing up discordant voices against BJP by BJP stalwarts like Shatrughan Sinha, Navjyot Singh Sidhu and may be Varun Gandhi, drumming of support from leftist and anti-BJP intellectuals, politicians, poster-boys (Hardik and Kanahiya), media stalwarts and TV anchors playing up every fault line in opposition's defence and high decibel emotional and sensational ad campaign, will be on test in UP. But remember Bihar election was different from 2014 Lok Sabha elections and UP elections are much different from Bihar elections.

The Congress party's boldness to stand alone in the elections cannot be called bravery. It is helpless, because after the WB and Bihar results, taking the party as an appendage can be a liability for any other "ally" party.

Congress party banks heavily on Rahul Gandhi. Despite the fact that both Rahul and Sonia have been representing the state as MPs with successive victories and with their unquestioned leadership of the party as Vice President and President respectively, they have failed to reap impressive electoral benefits in the state, by demonstrating their leadership and organizational skills and strength. With the National Herald sword against the two still hanging over their heads and the yet undecided cases of scams that are shadowing the party, it will be a Herculean task for Rahul or Sonia led party to make an electoral revolution of sorts in the state. It may eventually, in a desperate move, align with some other local parties.