Congress is working on a Muslim-Kurmi-Brahmin combination to swing votes in its favour.
For the last 22 years the Congress has been sidelined in the power play of the country’s most populous state — Uttar Pradesh.
This time, as it gears up to regain the lost ground under its heir apparent Rahul Gandhi, the party is also banking on some realignment of the caste combinations to reap electoral dividends.
“The Muslims have generally combined with Yadavs, and this has strengthened the Samajwadi Party. But this time we have worked out a combination of the Muslims and Kurmis across the state. So, this election will see that some old combinations are broken and some new ones are formed,” said a senior Congress leader who is handling the poll affairs of the state.
The party has some impressive caste numbers to back its optimism. As per its calculations, there are about 95 seats with over 20,000 Kurmi voters, and another 305 constituencies that have over 20,000 Muslim voters. Out of these there are about 107 seats where Muslim-Kurmi together have over 50,000 votes.
“The advantage is that these voters are spread all over the state, and we are also in the process of mapping the non-backward class and upper-caste seats,” the leader informed. However, there is a special focus is on Muslims and Kurmis, as it feels confident of Brahmin votes. The Congress is working on a new Muslim-Kurmi-Brahmin combination to swing votes in its favour and counter SP’s usually successful Muslim-Yadav combination.
“The area beyond Lucknow is dominated by Kurmis and Muslims while Bariely, Pilibhit, certain areas of Shahjanpur are strong Muslim belts. We are focusing in these areas,” said the leader adding due care was being taken with regard to this combination while giving tickets.
The party has already disturbed political calculations by announcing a sub-quota for Muslims within the 27% quota for OBCs in central jobs and educational institutions. The Congress feels this will be useful to wean the Muslim voters away from the Samajwadi Party.
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