After Anti-CAA Stir, Priyanka's Varanasi Visit Today Among Cong's Attempts to Regain Lost Ground in UP

Lucknow: Over the last year and more, three instances, from three distant regions of Uttar Pradesh, have made headlines — the Sonbhadra massacre, the Unnao rape case, and the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

On all three occasions, it is not the two main opposition parties in the state — Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) — but the Congress that has hit the road and emerged as the dominant voice to challenge the Yogi Adityanath-led government.

In all three instances, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi was the first leader to reach the spot and meet the victims. Akhilesh Yadav’s SP was seen responding to all three of the Congress party’s attempts to find its feet in the state while BSP chief Mayawati only tweeted her concern over the state of affairs.

Gandhi will visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi on Friday to meet those arrested during the anti-CAA protests in the city.

Party sources said she will meet Banaras Hindu University (BHU) students, civil society members, and those who were part of protests against the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Since taking charge of the politically crucial state, Gandhi has been quietly putting in the much-required footwork in UP, organising meetings and setting the house in order.

A case in point is the massacre of 10 Gond tribals in Umbha village of Sonbhadra district on July 19 over a land dispute. A month later, Gandhi was the first leader who attempted to reach the spot. She was, however, stopped at Mirzapur by the district administration and detained at Chunar Guest House after enforcement of Section 144 of CrPc.

Refusing to leave without meeting the victims' families, Gandhi spent the night at the guest house and finally met some of the families brought there.

The SP, on the other hand, sent a delegation, which was also stopped by the district administration. The BSP also sent a delegation, which included leaders Lalji Verma and RS Kushwaha.

In the Unnao rape and immolation case, Gandhi once again took the lead and personally visited the family. Soon after she left for Unnao on December 7, Yadav rushed to stage a dharna at the gates of the UP Assembly in Lucknow along with the party’s senior leaders. The SP chief would only visit Unnao a week later.

Mayawati, meanwhile, met Governor Anandiben Patel and raised concern over the increase in the number of crimes against women in the state.

The Congress was also the first among opposition parties to meet the families of those killed during the anti-CAA protests in Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor and Meerut.

The party's efforts seem to indicate its first serious attempt to establish itself in the state’s political landscape after living on the margins for almost three decades. The past few years have seen the Congress diminish both in terms of power and votes as it failed to defeat the BJP, the SP and the BSP in the mandal-kamandal churning.

The upheaval in politics meant that the party lost the upper caste vote to BJP, the minority vote to SP, and the Dalit vote to BSP. It has since limped from one election to other, winning stray seats in quadrangular contests. 2009 remains the only exception as it saw a section of Muslims shift away from the SP in the wake of Mulayam Singh aligning with former chief minister Kalyan Singh.

But in all these years, the party managed to secure its two bastions in the Nehru-Gandhi stronghold in the Avadh region — Amethi and Rae Bareilly. But come 2019, it lost Amethi to the BJP, where Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi.

It is perhaps this loss which pushed the Congress to a fresh start. There is a realisation in the party that it cannot revive its fortunes by remaining a vassal adjunct to the regional players in the state. Its experiments at allying with both the SP and the BSP failed miserably.

Even within the organisation, the party in UP has gone ahead with a major clean-up despite resistance from within. Some old guards with little presence on ground have either left or have been sidelined.

The signs are clear that, irrespective of the outcome, the Congress plans to go it alone in UP. And it is looking for ways to re-invent itself 30 years after the last Congress chief minister, ND Tiwari, was voted out of power in the state in the aftermath of the VP Singh rebellion.