Political parties trying caste formula magic in eastern UP

With stakes high in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is desperately trying to get the "magical caste formula" of the past, which saw it getting the lion's share of votes till 20 years ago.

In a rally in this temple city last Sunday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi invoked the name of the late Brahmin leader Kamla Pati Tripathi, who was once the CM of the state and also Union minister for several years, to woo back the community it has lost in the recent years.

"I recall with pride Pandit Kamlapati Tripathi and his contribution," she told the audience.

In an apparent bid to woo the minorities, she also referred to the plight of the weaving community (Muslims) who have been hit hard in recent years with machines and power looms replacing artisans in large numbers.

Congress organised a function recently in Delhi also in the memory of Tripathi, whom it has now reinvented as a tall Brahmin leader, whose name could be used politically to counter the social engineering of the ruling BSP.

The social engineering of the BSP has witnessed the Mayawati-led party appropriate the traditional Congress vote bank comprising Dalits, Muslims and Brahmins. It led to the BSP coming to power on its own for the first time in the last Assembly elections.

Varanasi is a constituency which has sizeable Brahmin votes and Congress has pitted the sitting MP Rajesh Mishra against BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi.

In the fight between the two Brahmin leaders, BSP's Mukhtar Ansari and SP's Ajay Rai are putting up a decent fight turning the prestigious seat in a four-cornered contest.

While Mishra, in his meetings, is describing Joshi as a "leader imported from Allahabad", the supporters of Joshi are projecting him as the "messiah" for the temple city who has come only to revive its lost glory. He is also being described by his supporters as a "Brahmin and a Hindu icon" in a move to win back the influential community to the party fold.

Ansari, incarcerated in jail due to his alleged role in a murder, has a criminal past but his supporters are mobilising the weaver community (Ansaris) and the other Muslims to thwart the ambitions of the SP, Congress and the BJP.

Rai, a sitting MLA, who was once in the BJP, is banking on a publicity blitzkrieg and is prominent on the local FM channels, promising many good things for the people of the ancient and holy town on the banks of the Ganges.

In the wake of the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy, the saffron party managed to win four consecutive Lok Sabha elections from here from 1991 onwards in 1996, 1998 and then in 1999 elections.

Congress' Mishra broke BJP's winning streak in 2004 and swung the elections in their favour.

Promising to be an interesting contest where all tested permutations and combinations are being tried - caste, community, religion and local issues - the result would determine whose call was right and touched the heart of the million plus voters.