New Delhi: Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday dissolved all committees formed for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls to prepare the ground for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
According to sources, the new Congress chief is expected to roll out his plan for the revival of the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest number of MPs (80) to the Lok Sabha, after the results for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls are out on December 8.
As per the plan, Congress will grade the Lok Sabha seats on the basis of the most promising, comfortable, and tough seats. Initially, the party would focus on the 20 most promising seats where identification of potential candidates and strengthening of local teams would be done in advance.
There would be a separate plan for the comfortable and the tough seats, the sources said, adding that the grand old party needs to spread out its resources efficiently. “We have started working for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. We want to win a respectable number of seats in the state,” Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Brijlal Khabri told ETV Bharat. “The new poll panels will be recast as deemed necessary by the new president,” he said.
The Congress had won 21 parliamentary seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and got one more a few months later in a by-poll but came down to two in 2014 and only one seat in 2019. At present, former party chief Sonia Gandhi represents Rae Bareli seat in the Lok Sabha while former chief Rahul Gandhi lost Amethi in 2019.
The Congress is now aiming to regain its 2009 position in Uttar Pradesh, which has been playing a key role in propping up the BJP government at the Centre since 2014. “There will be a lot of action in the state after the Gujarat and Himachal polls are over,” former MLA Akhilesh Pratap Singh said.
Uttar Pradesh is also significant for the grand old party as it is the home state of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Though Priyanka had been managing the Amethi and Rae Bareli seats since 2004 when Rahul first entered the Lok Sabha, she was given the charge of half the state in 2019 along with Jyotiraditya Scindia, who later joined BJP.
Later, Priyanka was given full charge of Uttar Pradesh and started preparing the ground for the 2022 Assembly elections. However, the two years of the pandemic in between created operational problems and weakened the organization. There were also complaints from the workers that Priyanka has not stationed in the capital Lucknow and would visit only during agitational programs.
According to Congress insiders, the 2022 Assembly election results shocked Priyanka, who had worked on the organization, and now wants to adopt a new approach in the important state. The recent appointment of Brijlal Khabri, a former BSP leader, and naming separate in charge for six zones, was part of that renewed approach, sources said, adding that the grand old party would try its best to win over its traditional Dalit support base. “Priyanka Gandhi is right now busy with Gujarat but she may visit UP after the results,” said a senior AICC functionary.
