Opinion Sonia Gandhi in Varanasi: Eyeing Dalit, Brahmin votes, Congress takes on Modi in ‘home turf’
Sonia Gandhi in Varanasi: Is Uttar Pradesh the Congress Party's only hope of revival?
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Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi’s roadshow is a clear indication that the party must significantly improve its UP tally if it is to retain its dwindling significance. File/Express Photo/Neeraj Priyadarshi
From Dalit to Brahmin, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s roadshow in Varanasi today will see the party attempt to woo the two communities and revive its fortunes in the politically significant state of Uttar Pradesh. With a six-km rally beginning at a statue of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, a visit to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, two meet-the-press events and then concluding her visit with a stopover at the statue of former Congress politician Kamlapathi Tripathi – the party’s elections strategy is pretty clear – woo the Dalits, regain the trust of the Brahmins.
In Varanasi, Sonia’s focus is likely to be on the two-year rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who represents that consituency in Lok Sabha – and what the party terms as his failed promises. Sonia will take on the Prime Minister for failing to deliver on his promises to revive the handloom industry as well as clean-up river Ganga – a poll plank on which Modi campaigned in 2014 saying “I feel Mother Ganga has called me to Varanasi.”
The Congress Party is leaving no stone unturned to ensure a comforting result (it won 28 seats out of the 403 in 2012), if not a win in the 2017 elections. But what’s giving the party this confidence? With consecutive state assembly defeats – taking on Modi in his adopted home state is, perhaps, the party’s only chance at rejuvenating the moral of the cadre. Rarely has the top brass of the grand old party stepped into election mode days into its launch (no leader of the party’s high command has stepped into Punjab yet, though Capt Amarinder Singh has been campaigning for months). The plan – it appears – is to at least ensure a dent in the BJP’s poll fortunes – something that will be significant for the in-revival-mode Congress Party to trumpet that the Modi wave no longer finds takers. In the 2014 elections, the BJP won 71 of the 80 seats.
Congress’ chief ministerial face in Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dikshit ahead of a three-day bus yatra – “27 Saal, UP Behaal” – from the party headquarters, in New Delhi. Also seen is senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad. PTI Photo
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Moreover, Sonia’s rally could hurt the BJP even more as it is yet to declare a chief ministerial face – without which, it’s left to its national spokespersons to firefight the Gandhis in UP – a message of state-leadership failure the party would not want to give out. Besides today’s roadshow, the last two weeks have seen Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi meet with thousands of party workers in Lucknow as well as a bus tour to Kanpur, where 78-year-old Sheila Dikshit was portrayed as the face of progress. Next in line is perhaps a rally by Priyanka Gandhi – a demand the party’s UP workers have long been demanding for, more so after every electoral defeat the party faces.
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Comprising a significant 10 per cent vote bank, the Congress party’s campaign has seen a major focus on regaining the trust of the upper caste. Besides the appointment of Dikshit as its chief ministerial face, its political strategist Prashant Kishor has, in the past, emphasised that the only way for the ailing party to revive its fortunes is to eat into that vote share, which the BJP has been losing to regional parties over the years.
Kishor’s ‘Brahmin formula’ also has the numbers to back it. According to a Lokniti study, the BJP’s Brahmin vote share has been progressively shrinking in Assembly elections. Between 2002 (50 per cent) and 2007 (44 per cent) there was a six per cent fall while between 2007 and 2012 (38 per cent) there was another six per cent decline. The Samajwadi Party won the 2012 election getting 19 per cent of the Brahmin votes; BSP got another 19 per cent, according to the Lokniti study. The question remains whether the Congress party can do enough in the next eight-odd months to woo the community.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi meets one of the Dalit victims who were beaten up by ‘cow protectors’ in Una, Gujarat. PTI Photo
Capturing the Bahujan Samaj
While winning back the Brahmin vote is one part of the strategy, the recent incidents of violence against Dalits emerging from across the country – protests in Mumbai against the demolition of an Ambedkar building, lynching in Una, Gujarat, the suicide of Dalit PhD scholar Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad, as well as the now suspended BJP leader Dayashankar Singh remark against Mayawati gives the Congress Party much-needed ammunition, something that has seen Rahul criss-cross the country every time there’s a Dalit agitation. But even if the party does not manage to capture the vote share of the Dalit community, ensuring the BJP loses that vote bank in Uttar Pradesh, works. The BJP, though, on its part, is doing all it can to regain Dalit trust. For instance, in his recently held cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Modi ensured that five of the 19 newly appointed ministers were from the Dalit community. But the recent Una violence does seem to have an effect in Uttar Pradesh. Party president Amit Shah had to cancel a rally as part of its outreach to the Dalit community. And this bodes well for the Congress in the state.
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