The Congress Working Committee will decide on a long-standing demand of the party workers that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra be the party’s face in the 2022 UP Assembly elections. Senior Congress leader Jitin Prasada, who is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), said that the party would not be forging any alliance in the 2022 assembly elections. On whether the Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi would be the face of the party in 2022 elections, he said: “That has been a long-standing demand of the workers, but, the decision is a strategic one which will be taken by the CWC and Priyanka’ ji herself.” According to political observers, Priyanka Gandhi is focusing on the core voters to capture power in Uttar Pradesh. If Congress gets the support of Muslims who comprise 19% of the voting population, SCs who make up about 20.8%, Brahmins who form about 12 – 14%, and other EBC voters in UP, then the Congress could form the government on its own. Without Muslims and SCs votes, the upper castes alone would never vote for the Congress and they would prefer the BJP in UP. According to Congress sources, Priyanka Gandhi is going to shift her base to Lucknow, where party veteran Sheila Kaul’s house was renovated months back for her. The move is expected to rejuvenate the party morale as leaders and cadres would get better guidance from the top leadership as well as provide immediate feedback to the high-command from the grounds up. It is also supposed to help the Congress leaders take on the Yogi government more assertively for its systemic failures, while Priyanka’s popular appeal to expected to help revive the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh.
PILOT CRASH-LANDS HIS ‘DISLODGE GEHLOT’ PLANE
Sachin Pilot has completely failed in toppling the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan. If he really wanted to be the chief minister of Rajasthan, he should have pressured the Congress high command at the time when Ashok Gehlot was appointed Chief Minister by the high command just after the assembly elections. However, after Jyotiraditya Scindia’s resignation from the Congress party and the fall of Kamal Nath government, Sachin Pilot tried acting like Scindia, but failed against the experienced Ashok Gehlot. According to a source close to the Gehlot camp, a tall leader of BJP, who seems to be annoyed with the state BJP leaders and was not included in the race for Chief Minister-ship by the BJP high command, had informed Gehlot that Sachin Pilot along with his MLAs was trying to dislodge the Rajasthan government. This timely warning gave Ashok Gehlot more time to save his government, and while Pilot was thinking that he had got the support of 30 MLAs, Gehlot had managed to retain 20 of those MLAs with him, resulting in Pilot being left with the support of just 10 MLAs. Unfortunately, in the process, Pilot has also lost the sympathy of the Congress high-command.
POLITICS OVER SLAIN GANGSTER VIKAS DUBEY’S ‘BRAHMIN’ CASTE
After the encounter of gangster Vikas Dubey by the UP police, now the political parties are trying to use his caste, he was Brahmin, for their respective benefit. Once upon a time, Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims were the core voters of the Congress. Hence, the Congress has been trying to use this encounter to its own advantage, even though the BJP has brought Brahmins to its fold after the Ram Mandir movement. Moreover, Brahmins also supported BSP and Mayawati many times. In 2017, the Brahmins voted for the BJP en masse and Yogi Adityanath was installed as the Chief Minister to placate the overwhelming Hindu vote. However, since the encounter of Vikas Dubey, the political parties have started projecting him as a Brahmin martyr, calling him Sher-e-Brahmin instead of a gangster. BSP chief Mayawati declared that on the issue of Vikas Dubey, the government should not terrorise the whole community. On the other hand, SP claimed that its party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav had declared holiday on Parshuram Jayanti when he was the chief minister. To top it all, Congress has given a new slogan: “BJP mein teen he pareshan; Dalit, Brahmin aur Musalman”.
BIHAR POLLS: OPPN PARTIES OPPOSE EC’S DECISION ON POSTAL BALLOTS
All the opposition parties in Bihar are united and protesting against the decision of the Election Commission. Firstly, the EC has announced that voters above the age of 65 years, that is all senior citizens, can vote through postal ballot and the EC has also permitted coronavirus-positive patients, who are in home quarantine or in hospitals or Covid-19 centres, to vote through postal ballot. Soon after this announcement, the Left parties came on the streets and demanded withdrawal of this order. After that, the Congress-RJD also appealed to the EC to withdraw it. Now, TMC is also against this order and threatened the EC to withdraw as this is expected to help the BJP. By this order, 6% of the voters can vote through postal ballot. Moreover, the Election Commission does not show any intention to withdraw the order. Secondly, RJD, LJP and other parties want the EC to extend the date of election in Bihar as the coronavirus cases are increasing day by day in the state. Opposition parties have claimed that the Nitish Kumar government has completely failed in controlling the coronavirus disease.
MAMATA CHANGES TUNE ABOUT SYAMA PRASAD MUKHERJEE
In the wake of the 2021 assembly election in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was once very critical of Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Jan Sangh, has changed her tunes vis-à-vis the Bengali Hindutva icon. Banerjee has come a long way from the time she called Mukherjee an “RSS stooge”, to the present day when she has accepted and endorsed changing the name of Kolkata Port Trust to honour Syama Prasad Mukhurjee, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With the BJP ascendant in West Bengal, Banerjee does not want to annoy the regional sentiments on the eve of the election. This is déjà vu for the Bengali people reminiscent of the time when the communists decided to change their mind about Subhash Chandra Bose, the Bengali icon, and named Kolkata International Airport after him when the Left was in power in the state. (IPA)