Gandhi has been catapulted into a national role, and this would certainly take away a big chunk of his ‘mindspace and timespace’.
Under not so happy circumstances, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has been catapulted into a national role, and this would certainly take away a big chunk of his ‘mindspace and timespace’ that is currently focused on Uttar Pradesh and the affairs of the youth and students’ wing of the party.
“In Uttar Pradesh, he faces the biggest challenge to his skills as a politician and vote catcher within the next 10 months, and the odds are certainly stacked against him,” said a senior UP politician who has been a witness to the trials and tribulations of the party over the last two decades.
By common consensus within senior party leaders, the problems in the state that is currently ruled by Mayawati’s BSP on the strength of an alliance among the dalits, and the upper castes fall in thee categories; leadership, strategy and organisaton.
“Our national leadership comes from UP, with both the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son firm in their traditional parliamentary strongholds, but we do not have a state leader who can match either Mayawati or Mulayam Singh. Besides, the party has always been loath to project anyone as the chief ministerial candidate,” said another senior MP.
But there is no dearth of claimants for this position. Besides, the state PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi and the long standing leader of the legislative wing Pramod Tiwari, Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Sriprakash Jaiswal and even the young Jitin Prasada from the young brigade all fancy their chances for this post.
The question of strategy in terms of pre-poll and post-poll combinations is very critical as the party quite clearly does not have the wherewithal to emerge as the ruling party on its own. Its strategy to going alone worked well in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when it surprised everyone by winning 21 seats.
“But that was a different setting, as the party was seen as the winner at the national level, with a clear leadership and pre-as well as post poll strategy. All these elements are lacking at the state level,” the MP added.
In terms of organisation, there has been a revival of sorts and there has been a clamour for the party tickets for the forthcoming 2012 assembly polls, but over the years the state has developed a large cunk of politicians who keep on shifting sides and evaluating their winning chances till the last moment. ‘ So even if the list of candidates is finalised well in advance, as being planned at this stage, the possibility of last minute changes cannot be ruled out,” said an AICC functionary.
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