Congress out of ICU in UP, full recovery may take time

After churning the state for almost three months through yatras and road shows, the Congress in UP is showing signs of recovery from the comatose that it has been for the past 27 years.

“We are out of ICU (intensive care unit) and on the road to recovery. The rate of recovery may be debatable but we are definitely getting better,” said a former UP Congress president who did not want to be named.

Congress leaders are aware that the party’s revival in UP is crucial if it has to make a comeback in the 2019 general elections and is, therefore, employing all its energy and resources in the UP Assembly polls.

The Congress’s yatras that include its vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s Deoria-to-Delhi trip, the two yatras led by UP Congress president Raj Babbar and chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit, and now the ongoing “Rahul Sandesh Yatras” in every district may not have grabbed headlines, but have definitely had an impact, particularly among the rural population. “Mr Gandhi’s month-long kisan yatra was an interactive event where the Congress vice-president spoke to farmers, understood their problems, spoke about what he wanted to do for them and also what the UPA government had done for them. It was not designed to be a media event or a photo opportunity and that is why it has struck a chord with people,” Mr Babbar said. During his trip, Mr Gandhi asked farmers to fill up forms giving details about their debt burden from banks, their addresses and phone numbers. The Congress claims it has got over one crore farmers to fill up the forms which will probably be placed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the winter session of Parliament. The party will mount pressure on the Centre to waive off farm loans.

Though the kisan yatra is over, farmers could be seen queuing up to fill up the forms which have now been sent to the party’s district offices. A Congress leader said that in the past two months, the party has mobilized its volunteers and given a clear message to leaders that it means business and is determined to revive in UP.

“For the first time, the party has set up 1.3 lakh booth committees across 75 districts. It has been made mandatory for every ticket aspirant to submit a list of at least one worker at each booth, along with address and phone number, which are being verified. This is a huge achievement because till now, Congress candidates did not bother about having representatives at the booth level,” a party leader said.

A visible impact is that the Congress has received 7,400 applications for 403 Assembly seats in UP, and there is a surge in the membership drive.

Election surveys, however, put the Congress at its lowest ever in UP. “We are working on the ground and not creating a hype. These poll surveys, in fact, suit us because it will not let us get complacent. Besides, everyone knows how these surveys are carried out,” a Congress functionary said.

The recent exit of former UP Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi and eight Congress MLAs is not likely to create much impact on the party’s fortunes.

“The BJP creates hype on surgical strikes and Rita Bahuguna joining the party on the same scale. If she was such a mass-based leader, why couldn’t she revive the Congress during the five years that she remained the state president As for the other MLAs leaving the party, this kind of exchange takes place before every election. Leaders like Rizwan Zaheer and Brijlal Khabri have also joined the Congress,” Congress leader Pradeep Mathur said.