Inside vs outside for Congress

The faction-ridden Congress is banking on leaders imported from the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to stay afloat.

- VIRENDRA SINGH RAWAT

Out of power for 33 years in UP, the state which accounts for the largest number of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, the party could win only two of the 403 constituencies in the Vidhan Sabha polls, which were held earlier this year.

In the Lok Sabha elections in 1984, the Congress had won all the seats in the state.

Meanwhile, the Congress has decided not to contest the UP Parliamentary and Assembly bypolls in three seats on December 5. While the Lok Sabha by-polls will be held in Rampur and Mainpuri, the Assembly by-election will be in the Khatauli Assembly constituency, Muzaffarnagar.

Instead, the party is bracing itself for the urban local bodies polls, which will be held in the coming weeks. These elections will not only test the poll preparedness of the Congress ahead of 2024, but serve as a plausible indicator of how strong the BSP imports are.

With the experiments, combinations and permutations coming a cropper in successive polls, including the entry of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra into the political arena and a pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in 2017, the Congress has deployed three prominent former BSP leaders in key positions.