LUCKNOW: While Congress Party is enthused by the turnout at the Uttar Pradesh leg of its former president Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), political analysts are sceptical of its tangible impact on the grand old party's political fortune in India's biggest state which sends 80 members to parliament.
"BJY's UP leg seems more of a formality. How serious the planners were about it could be gauged from the fact that only three days were allocated to the state which is politically the most crucial as compared to 20-odd days to Kerala and Karnataka. Even much smaller states like Haryana were given more time," says JP Shukla, a political commentator.
Any BJY-like campaign is futile in UP if it doesn't cover the heartland. And here, the Congress left out its bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli, and also its former seat Prayagraj. "The party itself is not confident of its revival in the state, where it has seen a constantly dwindling fortune since 1985 when it last won a state election with 269 seats,” he adds.
In the previous two assembly elections, its tally was seven (2017) and two (2022) with a vote share of 6.5 % and 2.3 % respectively. While Rahul himself lost from Amethi in 2019 LS polls when his sister Priyanka Gandhi was in-charge of the party in 2022 state elections.
Its intent to rejuvenate aside, the Congress's attempt to project itself as the ‘big brother’ in the opposition rank through the Yatra by inviting Samajwadi Party, BSP and RLD leaders to join the Yatra proved futile. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati and RLD president Jayant Chaudhary sent their best wishes but declined to join the Yatra.
“Akhilesh Yadav has tried the strategy of allying with smaller parties with reasonable success in the 2022 assembly polls. He will continue to stick to it.
Besides, he has seen the pitfalls of allying with Congress and BSP in the 2017 UP polls and 2019 general elections. By joining a forum set up by Congress, even if it claims to be apolitical, Akhilesh didn't want to send out a confusing signal," says Prof AK Mishra, a political scientist.
"Mayawati is also going back to her core strength of Dalit and Muslim combination. And Jayant, who is looking at a long partnership with Akhilesh following the revival of RLD fortunes in 2022 UP elections, won't go against him," he adds.
So, as the Yatra was passing through the Jatland, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury and Tikaits of Bharatiya Kisan Union endorsed it and extended their support but from a safe distance only. They gave their cadre the freedom to join the Yatra on their free will while keeping themselves away on one pretext or the other.
The Yatra in UP, of course, had some positives. Rahul drew the 'best of luck' messages from across the spectrum, even from unexpected quarters -- Ram Janmabhoomi temple priests Satyendra Das, Shree Ramjanmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust secretary Champat Rai and a couple of more seers from Ayodhya. But, that can hardly be taken as a political score.
Secondly, the yatra passed through the three western UP districts where Congress exists only in the memory of people. Being Jatland, here the political stakeholders are only RLD and the BJP. Congress candidates have been faring as poorly as losing their deposits for the last three decades. “So the response to Yatra in western UP can not be a barometer of its popularity or revival in the state,” says JP Shukla.
In Shamli and Baghpat, the yatra witnessed a large turnout of local Muslims. The party had a brief silver line in over three decades of cloudy political fortune in the state in 2009 when a large chunk of the community backed it in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress then came a close second behind SP with 21
seats. But it's too early to call the turnout at the yatra the community's support to Congress in elections as SP is seen as the only champion of its cause in UP as was witnessed in the 2022 Assembly polls.