One of the advantages of Twitter in political communication is that it insulates a politician from public gaze, and hence, one cannot really gauge how shaken a leader is after a poll debacle.
Hence on May 19, while the swagger was back with BJP leaders after Assembly election results showed they were two states closer to a Congress-mukt Bharat, Congress leaders took to Twitter to convey their disappointment. Senior party leader Digvijaya Singh tweeted, "We have done enough introspection shouldn't we go for a major surgery?"
What this "major surgery" is, no one knows. The party’s next outing is in Punjab – where AAP is better poised to grab the anti incumbency votes - and in Uttar Pradesh, where it is number 4.
So, when celebrated campaign strategist Prashant Kishor said UP for Congress was possible, many within the Congress thought it was audacious and that he was being foolhardy.
In UP, Team PK has been holding meetings with party workers on the ground over the last two months. They say things can be turned around and that the Congress has a much better chance than in Punjab.
Kishor’s proposed solution, a Brahmin as a CM face in UP, is yet to be accepted by the Congress. A team member said it’s a high risk strategy which could either boomerang or take the Congress to a majority. The response from political observers has been mixed.
Social scientist Dipankar Gupta points out that the Congress doesn’t have a handle of its own in UP. "Congress doesn’t fill a hole anywhere. If it’s pro-minorities narrative, Mulayam Singh Yadav has captured the space, if it’s upliftment of Dalits, then Mayawati fills in nicely, if it’s around Ayodhya and identity, then the Congress is a non-starter,” he says.
Gupta though agrees with Kishor’s proposal that only something dramatic in Uttar Pradesh can help the Congress in this contest.
The BJP’s decision of replacing a Brahmin, Laxmikant Bajpai, with an OBC, Keshav Prasad Maurya, as its state chief is seen as leaving the field open for the Congress to bring Brahmins back to its fold. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, when the Congress sprang a surprise with 22 seats, the gains were largely because of two reasons. First, the Brahmins who account for 13 percent of the voters, had come back to the party after deserting it in the late 1980s. Second, the 17 percent Muslims had deserted Mulayam Singh Yadav for aligning with Kalyan Singh, an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition.
Senior journalist Vinod Agnihotri, who tracks the state very closely, says, “The Brahmins in UP are at a crossroads and watching every move of the congress very closely. The Congress has no solid vote bank in the state as of today, as after the Mandal-Mandir politics its core support of Brahmins+ Muslims+ Dalits have drifted to other parties. So, its best bet is to look at Brahmins first, as the OBC were traditionally never with the Congress.
Ajoy Bose, author of BSP Supremo Mayawati’s biography, too is sceptical. “The idea of a Brahmin face may not work, as Mayawati who has a large Dalit votebank and an increasing Muslim support base, is likely to seem a far stronger contender to end the Yadav raj. Besides the Congress does not have Brahmin leaders of stature to lead its poll campaign,” he says.
The Congress may not have a standing yet in Uttar Pradesh, but Kishor has ensured it some mind-space over the last two months. Cong MLA from Deoria, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, says all the party needs in UP is a strong political face. “Chunav aur jung mein sena ladti hai General ke hausle par ( In polls and in wars, the army fights on the morale of the general)” he says.
The Congress in UP is ready to fight, but under the command of someone who can pull them up by their bootstraps… Irish novelist James Joyce, wrote in his magnum opus Ulysses, “There were others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps.’
Well who that will be, is for the grand old party to decide - sooner than later.
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