While Congress leader Rahul Gandhi calls for the party to actively promote women in the organisation and has set a target to have 50% of women as chief ministers within the next 10 years, there are growing murmurs of discontent in the party’s Uttar Pradesh leadership about the lack of representation of women in the 130-member Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC). After inaugurating a Kerala Mahila Congress convention in Kochi on Friday, the Wayanad MP said several women leaders in the party possess the qualities necessary to become chief ministers. “Earlier, I was discussing what would be a good target for us to try and achieve and I thought a good target for the Congress party would be that 10 years from today, 50% of our chief ministers are women. Today, we don't have a single woman chief minister. But I know many women in the Congress have the qualities to be very good chief ministers,” Rahul said. UP Congress’s women leaders said it was disappointing that a party that had raised the “Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon (I am a girl, I can fight)” slogan during the Assembly elections last year left only five berths for women in the new UPCC that was inaugurated last week. While only one woman was appointed general secretary — Sarita Patel — the other four on the committee are secretaries. A woman Congress leader said the state unit was in the hands of a few men who were ignoring women. “The women’s cell of the party is completely inactive because they aren’t given a chance to do anything. Everything in the party is decided by a few selected men — some of them are sitting in Delhi, some in Lucknow,” she said. In the UP elections, the Congress gave 40% of the 403 tickets to women. One of the women candidates, Aradhna Mishra of Rampur Khas in Pratapgarh district, won, with the party's seat count being just two. During the election campaign led by Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party focused on women voters and also launched a separate manifesto for them, promising free LPG cylinders and travel in government buses if voted to power. Since the poor show in the elections, Priyanka has been missing from UP and the state unit is currently under the leadership of five-time MLA Ajay Rai. Another leader said the men were calling the shots in the state unit in Priyanka’s absence. “While she was here, we were part of the decision-making process but that isn’t the case anymore. No one consults the women and everything is in the hands of a few men,” she said, adding, “It is also impossible to reach Priyanka ji because she is mostly campaigning in other states. If someone has to call her and talk to her about the issues within the party, it will take days. Even during visits to rape victims’ houses, men are there. We feel invisible most of the time.” Another woman leader said people in their areas would not take them seriously if the party neglected them. “The local party leadership and voters won’t listen to us if we aren’t given posts and representation,” she said. State Congress president Ajay Rai accepted the concerns expressed were genuine. “I agree that the representation of women wasn’t enough and we will rectify it. We will appoint more women in the state committee soon,” he said. On the allegation of “men hogging the limelight”, he said, “That is not true. When 40% of women contested the election in 2022, were there no men? We give both men and women equal opportunities and will rectify the mistakes.” Another Congress leader, however, defended the party saying, “The proportion of women in the state committee is similar to what it was last time. The 40% quota for women was for election, not for the organisation. Plus, you can pick up any party in UP and see. Women are given these many seats only. We aren’t the only party with a few women.”
