New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- Unity in its ranks and a smooth alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) ahead of the 2027 state polls are the two major 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 party also brought in its firebrand Saharanpur MP Imran Masood as working president, apparently to broaden its reach in western Uttar Pradesh, 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 Mona-Masood team will have to ensure that the party doesn't come across as a divided house ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh polls.
The outgoing Uttar Pradesh Congress chief on Saturday thanked the party leadership for giving him the responsibility of leading 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," 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 said Rai 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 there.
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 a news agency.
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 news agency on the phone, parrying queries on his stance on the alliance with the Samajwadi Party.
Commenting on the rejig, SP MP from Pratapgarh Shiv Pal Singh Patel said Masood did not have a massive support base and the Congress was hyping the Saharanpur MP to pressure the Akhilesh Yadav-led party for more seats in the alliance.
"A president should have full-fledged powers. So, where did the concept of a 'working president' come from? Anyway, he (Masood) keeps making all sorts of random statements. Sometimes he claims that the 37 seats the Samajwadi Party won were due to the Congress, whereas the reality is the exact opposite. The six seats they won in Uttar Pradesh were actually won because of our Samajwadi Party," Patel told news agency.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.