New Delhi: The Congress is trying to revamp its teams in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two big Hindi-speaking states, to prepare for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but challenges remain on the ground. The Congress has been pushed to the margins in UP, where the party could win just 2/403 seats in the recently concluded assembly polls.
In the 2019 national polls, when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was made in charge of UP, the party had just 1/80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Out of the 7 MLAs that the party had in 2017, Priyanka had named Ajay Kumar Lallu as the state unit chief and Aradhana Mishra as the CLP leader. Following the recent poll loss, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had asked former state unit chief Ajay Kumar Lallu to resign and named Aradhana Mishra as the new CLP leader.
After appointing Aradhana, a Brahmin as CLP leader, the party is debating whether to name the other lawmaker Virendra Chaudhary as the state unit chief or appoint someone else to the key post. Chaudhary, an OBC, could be an effective counter to both the BJP and the SP in the state. However, the names of other Brahmin candidates like Rajesh Mishra and Acharya Pramod Krishnam are also being considered for the important post.
A section of the leaders is suggesting that the Congress should choose a Dalit leader as state unit chief to woo the supporters of Mayawati’s BSP, which has just one MLA. Recently, Rahul Gandhi blamed Mayawati for rejecting an alliance with the Congress and giving way to BJP in the state but praised BSP founder Kanshi Ram.
“The process of consultations is on and a new team will be in place soon. We are preparing for the 2024 battle,” AICC Secretary in charge of UP Tauqir Alam told ETV Bharat. Similar changes are being planned in Bihar Congress, where former state unit chief Madan Mohan Jha resigned on Wednesday. Here too, the grand old party is trying to balance caste equations and bring in younger leaders who will take the organization ahead. Among the probable replacements of Jha include Meira Kumar, Ranjeet Ranjan, Chandan Yadav, Mohammed Jawed and Kanhaiya Kumar.
AICC in charge of Bihar Bhakta Charan Das told ETV Bharat: “The new team would be in place soon.” The party also postponed the Gandhi Sandesh Yatra which was to be taken out across the state by the Youth Congress from Champaran on April 17. This was done so that the new team could plan the yatra in a much bigger way combining the resources of the main party as well that of the frontal organizations like Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and Sewa Dal.
The Congress has been out of power in the state for long but shared power briefly when the JD-U-RJD-Congress alliance came to power in 2015 under Nitish Kumar as chief minister. Later, Nitish Kumar joined hands with the BJP. In 2020, the Congress had 19/243 seats in the Bihar assembly against 75 of ally RJD. In 2019, the party had just 1/40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
