Congress 'chintan shivir' for UP 2017 Assembly polls

The UP Pradesh Congress committee is holding a day-long strategizing session on Sept 21 at Mathura, which Rahul Gandhi is likely to attend

Even as the Bihar poll bugle has been sounded, the long out-of-power Congress in Uttar Pradesh is getting into the act of preparing for the 2017 Assembly polls. The UP pradesh Congress committee is holding a day long strategizing session on September 21 at Mathura. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend the session. With Congress close to decimation in the state, some like former MP from the state Jitin Prasada have proposed that the party advocate economic based reservation rather than caste based reservation, thereby addressing the discontent among "poor upper castes, the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and the Extreme Backward Castes (EBCs)."

However, not all are convinced within the party and feel that for a party in Opposition it is more important to focus on winning at the booth level and work on capturing power in the state rather than such issues.

While Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are the only two Congress MPs from the state, the Congress Vice President has for some time now directed party leaders from UP, former MPs, CWC leaders and AICC secretaries to extensively tour the state.

Speaking to Business Standard, legislature party leader Pradeep Mathur said, "Our main fight is with the BJP. The SP and the BSP have been rejected by the people in the state." Mathur added that for the first time the Congress had formed committees right upto the Panchayat and village level to facilitate mass contact initiatives.

In the run up to the September 21 session which will be attended by PCC office bearers, MLAs, MLCs and president of district committees as well as CWC members and ex ministers; the party is expected to brainstorm a range of issues and challenges being faced by the Congress in the state. Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989 in the wake of Mandal and Mandir agitation.

Asserting that the party needed to "carve(ing) up a social block based on progressive and innovative branding of the social justice system" to "break fresh political ground for itself in Uttar Pradesh", Jitin Prasada who had written to the AICC general secretary Madhusudan Mistry expressing his views, speaking to Business Standard said, "Reservation benefits have been cornered by the dominant castes but there are the disadvantaged among the general category, the poor among the upper castes, the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and the Extreme Backward Castes (EBCs), they have been excluded."

Adding, "Even among the OBC Yadavs, only those from a certain section from Etawah, Mainpuri have benefitted through reservation, the rest have not. There is great discontent among those who have been excluded in the garb of social justice." Prasad insists that factors of economic standing, access to schooling, family history, the groups access to political power and government jobs should be the deciding criteria for inclusion and exclusions. Prasada hastily adds that he was advocating a rethink on Dalits (SC) and ST quotas but only on OBC Mandal politics.

However not all Congressmen agree. A former MP from western UP, insists that such "ideas crop up when leaders don't want to work at the grassroot. For a party like ours which is not in power, we must aim on winning each and every booth which has roughly 1200 odd votes; then focus on capturing the seat- an Assembly on an average has 350 booths and a Lok Sabha seat 2000 booths. The need of the hour is to enthuse party workers, mobilise them so that they are seen and heard at the ground level. They need to be organized and allocated jobs."

The disparate ideas of party leaders from the state reflects itself in the rampant factionalism is rampant within the state unit; a fact that AICC general secretary in charge of the state, Madhusudan Mistry admits exists.

While the recent victory of the Congress over the land agitation had Rahul Gandhi hail it as a victory of farmers (especially from areas like Bhatta Parsaul where Gandhi had visited), the party will need more than that - an organisational strengthening at the ground if it has to revive itself in time for the Assembly polls 2017.