Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s elevation as the president of the Janata Dal (U) may not be a good omen for the Congress party that is trying to regain lost ground in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections under the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi.
Mr Kumar, the champion on non-Yadav OBC politics in the cow belt, wants to check the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, but there is a question mark whether he can succeed on his own or with the support of a prospective ally, Ajit Singh-led RLD, in the state divided on caste lines and among the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP.
The Bihar chief minister needs the Congress to gain political space, but the Congress dilemma is whether it can afford to be a junior partner in the Nitish Kumar-led front in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress party might have been losing elections since 1989, but it is perhaps the only party that gets votes from the upper and backward castes besides minorities. The Bihar battle was different as the Congress did not have any option but to be the junior partner of the JD(U)-RJD combine for its political survival.
Mr Kumar’s attempts to make inroads in Uttar Pradesh is a clear message that he does not want to confine himself to Bihar and is keen to play a national role by uniting anti-BJP parties.
However, he is not the only leader in the Hindi belt aspiring to become the Prime Minister. Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, BSP supremo Mayawati and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav too want become the Prime Minister with the help of the Sonia Gandhi-led party, the Left and anti-BJP parties. The Congress party’s Prime Ministerial candidate is its vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
If the BJP has been the main rival of the Congress, SP, BSP, JD(U) and RLD in Uttar Pradesh, the anti-BJP opposition cannot become friends because of the fight for political space. In fact, the BSP had allied with the saffron party a number of times to make Ms Mayawati the chief minister.
Interestingly, the non-BJP parties in UP unite against the Congress to check it from regaining lost ground among SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities. Therefore, the Congress has been fighting on many fronts against the like-minded parties and the BJP, as well.
A section of the Congress party is pressing for a pre-poll alliance either with the BSP or with a proposed JD(U)-led front even after Mr Rahul Gandhi involved poll strategist Prashant Kishor for the party’s revival in Uttar Pradesh.
