Lucknow, Oct 3 (PTI) Unity in its ranks and a smooth alliance ahead of the 2027 state polls with the Samajwadi Party (SP) are the two big tasks that await the new Congress leadership in Uttar Pradesh, party leaders feel.
On Friday, the Congress effected a leadership change in the party’s state unit, replacing Ajay Rai, a Bhumihar, with Aradhana Misra Mona, a Brahmin.
The Congress also brought in the party’s firebrand Saharanpur MP, Imran Masood, apparently to broaden its reach in western UP, where BJP has teamed up with the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Rai has been among the most visible party faces in the state over the past three years. The new combo of Mona-Masood will have to ensure that the party doesn’t come across as a divided house ahead of 2027 UP polls.
In his turn, the outgoing Uttar Pradesh Congress chief on Saturday thanked the party leadership for giving him the responsibility to lead the party in the state.
“I will remain eternally grateful to @RahulGandhi ji and the top leadership of the Congress for entrusting an ordinary worker like me with the responsibility of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president. The fight continues. My heartfelt best wishes to the new president and all the newly appointed office-bearers. We will fight, we will win! Har-Har Mahadev!” he said in Hindi on X.
Rai, who became the UPCC chief in August 2023, has already bared his plan of contesting the 2027 UP polls from Pindra Assembly segment of Varanasi.
Party sources say that he was not too keen on an alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
The electoral graph of the Congress — the grand old party of India — has been in constant decline in the state since 1989, when it last held power here.
Mona, the daughter of Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, is said to have good political relations with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
“Party unity and a respectable alliance deal is now what most hope for. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for the new team,” a senior party leader told PTI.
Some feel that Masood’s appointment as working president could ruffle feathers in the SP as the Saharanpur MP has been trading barbs with the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.
“I will do whatever the party wants me to do,” Masood told PTI on the phone, parrying queries on his stance on the alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
The party also named Chaudhary Virendra Singh as the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Uttar Pradesh. Mona was the CLP leader until now.
Devinder Nishad and Alok Prasad have been appointed senior vice presidents of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee.
Through the appointments, the Congress has sought to strike a social balance, with a Brahmin appointed as president, a Muslim as working president, and Rajendra Pal Gautam, the AICC in-charge of the state, being a Dalit leader.
Mona admitted that she will have to hit the ground running to ensure Congress as well as the INDIA alliance puts up a good show in UP.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadi Party won 37 seats in the state, including the parliamentary constituency of Faizabad, of which the temple town of Ayodhya is an integral part.
Congress won six seats, and combining forces with the ally SP, managed to restrict the BJP’s tally to 33 seats and the NDA total to 36 seats.
“We will do our best and execute the task the party has entrusted us with,” Mona told PTI Videos.
“My family holds a four-generation legacy within the Congress party, and I have been given the opportunity to carry it forward; for this, I am truly grateful. Our former state president (Ajay Rai) is like an elder brother to me; I have always had his guidance and affection … the Congress party has never been afraid of challenges,” she said.
On Yadav’s proposed event in Ayodhya on October 8, she said that being the chief of party, he can go anywhere to attend events.
On Masood’s appointment, Mona said it matters little to Congress what a leader’s caste or religion is.
“For parties like the BJP, religion, caste, and community are matters of politics. That has never been the case for the Congress party. From the freedom movement to the present day, the Congress party has always ensured representation and inclusion for everyone, moving forward by taking everyone along,” she said.
Even today, the Congress strives to move forward together with every community, religion, and caste, she said.
“Our mission is set for 2027, and to achieve this mission, we will take everyone along,” Mona added.
Meanwhile, SP spokesperson Abbas Haidar termed the rejig an “internal matter of the Congress.”
Dinesh Pratap Singh, the chief spokesperson of the UP BJP, in not so many words, claimed that the change of guard implied Congress’s unhappiness with the state unit leadership.
“Considering election as a battle, if you change your chief commander at the time of the polls, then what the outcome will be is easy to understand. By changing its UP unit chief, the Congress has made it clear that they do not have faith in Rai,” he told PTI. PTI NAV MAN VN
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