Congratulating the winners of the bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the results clearly showed that the voters are angry with the BJP and that they are ready to vote for the party that can defeat it.
But clearly the Congress isn’t the party that can do that in Uttar Pradesh. Their candidates forfeited their security deposit after they failed to get more than one-sixth of the total votes polled.
Tweeting in Hindi, Mr. Gandhi said: “The result clearly shows that the electorate is very angry against the BJP and will vote for the non-BJP party most likely to win. In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is determined to make a new beginning but change doesn’t happen overnight.”
Wake-up call
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Uttar Pradesh bypoll results are a wake-up call to the Congress in a State that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
As the party slips into political irrelevance in U.P., there is still no clarity on whether the party should push for a grand alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party or go it alone.
Former Law Minister, who represented the Farrukhabad constituency of U.P., tweeted, “Great victory for SP-BSP in UP. Might have been sweeter if the Congress had joined the effort. Vanquishing the Modi bandwagon will take foresight and sacrifice for all partners.”
A senior Congress leader said though the Congress’ U.P. in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad had proposed one-one formula (where SP would have contested one seat while the Congress the other seat), it was firmly rejected by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
While Mr. Yadav may have been guided by the 2017 Assembly poll results after the SP-Congress alliance got wiped out, a section of the Congress believed in striking out on its own in the most politically important State.
“If we give up our seats to the BSP or the SP, our leaders ask us why they should work for the Congress. We didn’t even have our own Chief Minister candidate from U.P. and had to project Sheilaji (former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit) as our CM face,” said a senior leader.
They argue that in 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won 21 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in U.P. despite going alone. But increasingly Opposition leaders seem to prefer the option of political parties coming together to tap voters’ anger.
“This is something we have seen when Mrs Gandhi (Sonia Gandhi) reached out to parties with common ideology to work together in the interest of the country and take it forward,” said R.P.N. Singh, Congress leader from U.P., indicating that Ms. Gandhi's dinner diplomacy on Tuesday to bring together 19 Opposition parties could be the first step in forging an anti-BJP alliance.
