Lucknow: Eyeing the vote of Uttar Pradesh’s Dalit inhabitants which as soon as stood strong as a rock behind Bahujan Samaj Social gathering (BSP) supremo Mayawati, the Congress Saturday appointed one-time Kanshi Ram aide and former BSP chief Brijlal Khabri as the brand new president of UP Congress Committee (UPCC), closing a six-month emptiness for the publish.
The occasion additionally divided its UP unit into six prants (areas) and appointed a “prant adhyaksha (regional president)” for every of those areas, particularly, Pashchim, Braj, Awadh, Bundelkhand, Prayag and Purvanchal.
Among the many occasion’s new regional heads in UP are Nasimuddin Siddiqui, five-time MLA Ajay Rai, and Nakul Dubey, who joined the Congress simply in Could this yr — all the three are former BSP leaders who served as ministers in Mayawati’s authorities in some unspecified time in the future. Rai had even contested in opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in 2019.
Former UPCC normal secretary Anil Yadav from Etawah, administrative in-charge Yogesh Dixit and Pharenda MLA Virendra Chaudhary are the opposite three different regional heads.
Interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi made the appointments barely days earlier than demitting workplace. Election for occasion president is to be held on October 17 with veteran Mallikarjun Kharge going up in opposition to MP Shashi Tharoor for the highest publish.
Even in 2016, Congress had appointed 4 vice presidents representing completely different areas of Uttar Pradesh, however the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has now divided the occasion’s state unit into six components with a regional president in control of every.
“In Sonbhadra, our chief Priyanka Gandhi ji fought for Dalits and now, after 28 years, the Congress has a Dalit president within the type of Brijlal Khabri. He’s a tall Dalit chief who has labored alongside Kanshi Ram ji,” UP Congress spokesperson Sachin Rawat advised ThePrint.
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Mayawati’s ‘eyes and ears’
Former UP chief minister Mayawati had as soon as described Khabri, who rose via the ranks to grow to be nationwide normal secretary of the BSP, as her “eyes and ears” within the state.
A former MP from Jalaun in UP’s Bundelkhand area, Khabri began his political profession as a member of the Bahujan Chhatra Sangh — a political outfit for college kids and children from the ‘bahujan‘ group which was a coaching floor for a number of BSP leaders.
Whereas his political beginnings had been humble, Khabri had his first style of electoral success in 1999 when he was elected as an MP from the Jalaun-Garautha Lok Sabha constituency.
He misplaced the seat in 2004 and returned to Parliament as a Rajya Sabha MP in 2008 earlier than unsuccessfully contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Jalaun on a BSP ticket for a second time in 2014.
He joined the Congress in 2016 and was made nationwide vice chairman of the occasion’s Dalit cell. In June 2021, Khabri was appointed secretary in-charge for Bihar, a publish he held till Saturday.
Along with his appointment as UPCC president, the Congress appears to be making a play to achieve misplaced floor within the state the place it was lowered to a meagre two seats within the March 2022 meeting polls.
Khabri’s appointment comes on the heels of a disagreement between Samajwadi Social gathering (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati over repeated mentions of Dr B.R. Ambedkar by Yadav throughout the SP’s two-day nationwide conference final month.
Akhilesh’s comment that the BJP misplaced some seats within the 2019 Lok Sabha polls owing to the may of the “Lohiaite and Ambedkarite alliance” had triggered hypothesis about revival of the SP-BSP alliance forward of 2024.
‘BMD’ method
Requested about Khabri’s appointment and that of six regional heads, UP Congress leaders admit that the transfer is an try at social engineering as a part of a ‘Brahmin-Muslim-Dalit (BMD)’ outreach forward of the 2024 elections.
The transfer is in keeping with Congress’ outreach to the Dalits, backwards and minorities who’re dealing with “atrocities below the BJP rule”, stated Virendra Chaudhary, who has been appointed the UPCC regional head of Purvanchal (japanese UP) prant.
“Congress will try and strengthen the organisation at sales space stage and unit stage. There’s a feeling that the [Dalit] group has misplaced religion in Mayawati. Prior to now, too, the Congress has been working for Dalits, backwards and minorities,” Chaudhary advised ThePrint.
Whereas 87 per cent of Jatavs — a piece of Dalits seen as Mayawati’s core base — had voted for BSP within the 2017 UP meeting polls, this quantity declined to 65 per cent in 2022, in accordance with a post-poll evaluation by Centre for the Research of Creating Societies (CSDS).
Explaining the rationale behind the transfer, Dhiraj Gurjar, AICC Secretary in-charge for Uttar Pradesh identified {that a} Muslim, two Brahmins, a Kurmi (OBC) and a Yadav face are amongst these appointed UPCC regional heads.
“These are individuals who have made their presence felt on the grassroots and have been MLA/MP earlier than. Brijlal Khabri ji is a two-time MP, each in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. He has an identification as a Dalit activist and has labored with them for a very long time,” Gurjar stated.
He added: “Brahmins, Muslims and Dalits are the pure vote financial institution of the Congress in UP and we are going to attempt to consolidate that. Our 2024 mission will likely be primarily based on this social engineering.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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