Congress’ move on UP is no surprise

There was no particular surprise in the Congress’s announcement on Sunday that it planned to contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, although senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who supervises the party’s work in the state, did say that even while going it alone the Congress would be open to working with any “secular” party that was willing to aim for the ruling BJP’s defeat.

It is evident that the Congress cannot win too many seats independently, although it had taken 21 in 2009, going it alone. The party is also aware that the recently-struck “secular” alliance of the BSP and the SP is expected to make it tough going for the BJP, which had won a record 71 seats in 2014. The Congress wasn’t included in this alliance. However, it seems it preferred not to be formally associated with the regional entities. Nevertheless, there seems to be some understanding between the Congress and this “secular alliance”. A key aspect of this is the expectation that the Grand Old Party has the potential to break into the BJP’s upper caste votebank, which is key to the latter’s survival. This can help the Congress win some seats on its own, if the results of 2009 are any guide.

The Congress’ ambition appears to have been raised by the fact of perceived general disappointment with the BJP governments at the Centre as well as in UP. The party’s recent victories last month in three Hindi heartland states are in some measure ascribable to the Centre’s policies.

There is another explanation as well for the Congress and the regional alliance not formally gravitating toward one another. When the Congress allied with the SP for the Assembly elections in early 2017, both came a cropper. In the Congress camp it was widely felt that the upper caste votes which may have moved toward it abandoned it wholesale as they were not keen on the SP.

These are really a matter of complex local dynamics. To this matrix has been added the Narendra Modi government’s move to extend 10 per cent reservations for the upper castes. How this may work is not quite clear yet. But the move has the clear potential to turn off sections of the SC and OBC votes that had gone with the BJP in large numbers in 2014.

Apart from the calculations being made for the coming parliamentary elections, under Rahul Gandhi the Congress is keen to establish an independent presence in UP, by any reckoning the most significant state electorally. Without it, the party may be hamstrung in presenting itself as the BJP’s main challenger across the country.

It is evident that the Cong cannot win too many seats independently, although it had taken 21 in 2009, going it alone. The party is also aware that the recentlystruck ‘secular’ alliance of the BSP and SP is expected to make it tough going for the BJP.