UP Congress leaders pitch for alliance with BSP, not SP

New Delhi: Several Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh have urged the party leadership to explore the possibilities of an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) rather than the Samajwadi Party (SP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

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At a marathon meeting to review the party's preparedness for the 2024 national elections on Monday, a majority of Congress leaders said a tie-up with the BSP will be more beneficial and effective on the ground. Their assessment was that while a large number of Muslims are siding with the Congress as evident from recent assembly elections in many states, the alliance with the BSP will help in the consolidation of the Dalit votes making it a formidable force to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country's politically crucial state.

Apart from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as many as 39 leaders from Uttar Pradesh attended the review meeting at the party headquarters in Delhi on Monday (December 18).

At the beginning of the three-and-a-half-hour-long meeting, former Union Minister Salman Khurshid said that he had received several representations from party leaders and workers suggesting that Congress should go for an alliance with the BSP and not the SP. However, he added that since the SP is a part of the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc, the Congress cannot abandon it.

However, Kharge responded by saying that BSP chief Mayawati does not want an alliance with the grand old party in view of ongoing investigations by central agencies into a number of disproportionate assets cases against her.

When Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari said the alliance with the SP was a better option, Priyanka Gandhi suggested that he should contest from the Pratapgarh Lok Sabha seat this time. To this, Tiwari said if he does so, the party will lose a crucial Rajya Sabha seat from Rajasthan after the BJP's victory in the recent assembly elections.

For his part, Rahul Gandhi insisted that it was a golden opportunity for the Congress to occupy the opposition space given that the Mandal and Dalit movements have completed their circle and it would be very difficult to revive those. Once that happened, only then the Congress would be in the race to regain power in Uttar Pradesh, he added.

In response to the alliance clamour, Priyanka Gandhi said that it was fine to look for tie-ups but the Congress should assess its strengths on the ground and accordingly identify winning seats.

Citing an example of Bihar, she said the Congress contested 70 seats in the 2020 assembly elections but managed to win 19 only whereas the party fought 40 seats in 2015 and bagged 27.

Priyanka Gandhi further said that the Congress-SP alliance, at present, stood at 30-35% vote share and it needs 15% more to be in a comfortable position.

At the meeting, it was suggested that unemployment is a huge problem in the state and the party needs to build its narrative around that apart from the other people-centric issue of price rise. The leaders gave an example of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Bihar's deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav who made unemployment and price rise the central talking points of his campaign in the 2020 assembly elections and almost snatched victory from the Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance. He single handedly managed to ensure that the RJD emerged as the single largest party in Bihar.

Some leaders claimed that the party's push for an OBC (Other Backward Class) census backfired in the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh given that the Congress does not have a tall leader from the community. The aggressive campaign forced the upper castes to vote for the BJP, they added.

It was concluded that the OBC census demand is a sensitive issue that needs to be handled carefully and with maturity. The party needs to talk about the OBC census in the context of justice for the backward classes.

At one point, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai suggested that all three leaders of the party -- Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi -- should contest from the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to send a strong message to the Hindi heartland or cow belt, which has over the years become a strong bastion of the BJP.