Keeping up with UP: Why Congress faces toughest challenge despite revival signs

COngress leader Rahul indira gandhi has been credited with the smooth out force modulation in mysore, allying with the rising regional party, Tamil Nadu’s ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, and forming the government under a new leadership in Kerala. This follows the Congress’s victory in the 2023 Telangana assembly elections.After its successes in southern India, the Congress faces its toughest challenge in Uttar Pradesh, where the party’s performance in the 2024 national polls, in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP), raised hopes of recovering from a terminal decline.The Congress-SP alliance won 43 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and polled 43.52% of the votes. The Congress bagged six of the 17 seats it contested and secured 9.46% of the votes. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) seats fell from 62 in 2019 to 33, dropping its overall tally below the majority mark in Parliament for the first time since 2014.Maintaining the momentum in Uttar Pradesh is easier said than done for the Congress. The party’s revival talk needs a reality check, as it has been the same old story, election after election, in the last three decades.The seat-sharing talks between Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav are scheduled for next week amid confusion following the unsuccessful attempt by Congress leaders Rajendra Pal Gautam and Tanuj Punia to meet Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati last month. The attempt triggered speculation about the Congress’s possible alliance with the BSP.Gautam and Punia have apparently been reprimanded, but the Congress is yet to clarify its stance. The party is seemingly divided over the issue of alliance. A faction prefers an alliance with the BSP over the SP. The anti-BSP faction argues against any alliance, pointing out how it took away Congress’s votes, and questioning why they should revive an unreliable party.Congress leader Akhilesh Pratap Singh maintained that the party’s focus is on organisational restructuring and cadre-building. He said this has finally shown results ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.Polls are due in seven states next year. Of them, Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989.Congress had a vote share of 27.90% and 94 out of 425 seats in the undivided Uttar Pradesh assembly in 1991. It was reduced to 2.33% of votes and two out of 399 seats in 2022. In 1996, it won 33 seats in alliance with the BSP.The Congress won 21 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 and 10 in 1999. Its seats have remained in the single digits for all other elections since 1991, touching rock bottom (one seat) in 2019.The Congress is demanding over 100 seats for the 2027 polls and threatening to go solo if denied a respectable number. Yadav has maintained that the SP’s alliance with the Congress will continue, but winnability will decide the number of seats each party will contest. The Congress contested 114 seats in the 2017 assembly polls.Congress leaders argue that the alliance offers advantages to the SP despite its decline by helping the consolidation of Muslim voters and attracting Dalits, who otherwise are hesitant to support a party whose core voters are the Yadavs. The alliance, they say, helps dilute the BJP’s aggressive “lawlessness” propaganda against the SP. The Congress can also attract the upper caste support, especially of Brahmins, while the SP focuses on the PDA formula of consolidating backward classes, Dalits, and Muslim voters.The SP has highlighted the strike rate and the Congress’s lack of cadre and winnable candidates. Congress leaders insist that Rahul Gandhi and Yadav have developed better communication since 2017. As key pillars of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, Rahul Gandhi and Yadav have taken on the BJP head-on. Moreover, they together form a formidable bloc in Parliament, leading the second and third largest parties after the BJP.Both Congress and SP recognise that the division of anti-BJP votes will give an easy third term to the BJP if they contest separately.Of the five states going to the polls in early 2027, Congress has better prospects in Uttarakhand and Punjab. The Congress won the 2002 and 2012 elections in Uttarakhand after the state’s creation in 2000. The Congress hopes to capitalise on anti-incumbency in the state.In Punjab, the Congress won the 1992, 2002, and 2017 polls before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept to power in 2022. The AAP faces anti-incumbency, and the Shiromani Akali Dal is in disarray.But the BJP, flush with resources, has a head start over the opposition parties, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, where chief minister Yogi Adityanath has been touring the state as the party seeks to keep up the momentum, particularly after leading the government in Bihar for the first time and storming to power in West Bengal.