The campaign for the by-elections to be held on 9 assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh will end at 6 pm on Monday and voting is on Wednesday. Congress has supported SP in the by-elections of UP and leaders of both the parties are also calling for an India alliance, but the pair of 'two boys of UP' were nowhere to be seen in the election campaign. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav alone along with his brigade was seen sweating on all the seats.
Leave aside Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, neither Congress state president Ajay Rai nor state in-charge Avinash Pandey were seen on the SP platform in the by-elections. Big leaders of UP Congress were first busy campaigning for Priyanka Gandhi in Wayanad, Kerala and then are working hard in the battle of Maharashtra. In this way, SP in UP is trying to row its boat alone in the political mid-elections?
The pairing of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav was a hit in the Lok Sabha elections of Uttar Pradesh. Out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, SP-Congress were successful in winning 43 seats. Due to not getting the desired seats in the UP by-elections, Congress had pulled back and gave walkover to SP on all 9 seats. Congress had announced to support SP in the by-elections. Akhilesh Yadav and Avinash Pandey had said that the alliance of SP and Congress will continue.
After Congress refused to contest the by-elections and announced to support SP, Akhilesh Yadav had announced the names of his candidates on the remaining seats of UP. Akhilesh had also said that 'it is not about winning the seat'. Under this strategy, the joint candidates of 'India Alliance' will contest elections on all the 9 seats on SP's election symbol 'Cycle'. Congress and SP are united and standing shoulder to shoulder for a big victory. India Alliance is going to write a new chapter of victory in this by-election. With the coming together of Congress' top leadership and booth level workers, the power of Samajwadi Party has increased manifold.
Akhilesh Yadav had claimed support from the top leadership of Congress and the workers. SP had also written formal letters to Congress to field its big leaders in the by-election campaign. Leaders are being appointed to maintain better coordination in both the parties. Udayveer Singh from SP and PL Punia from Congress are handling the responsibility of maintaining coordination with each other. Despite this, senior Congress leaders remained absent from the SP platform during the UP by-election campaign.
However, as a ritual, some Congress leaders were definitely seen in the by-election campaign. Congress MP from Amethi, KL Sharma, held a rally in favor of the SP candidate in Sisamau and was seen with Akhilesh Yadav. Similarly, Congress MP from Barabanki Tanuj Punia sought votes for the SP candidate from Ghaziabad seat. KL Sharma and Congress National Secretary Neelashu Chaturvedi were definitely seen present on the stage with Akhilesh Yadav in Sisamau, but no other big leader was seen campaigning on any seat.
All the big leaders of UP Congress kept distance from the by-elections. Congress state president Ajay Rai did not come to campaign on any seat in the by-elections, while UP in-charge Avinash Pandey was also not seen. Ajay Rai first went to Kerala to campaign for Priyanka Gandhi and from there he directly started campaigning in Maharashtra elections. For the last one week, Ajay Rai has been campaigning for Congress candidates in different assembly constituencies of Maharashtra.
At the same time, Avinash Pandey has been camping in Maharashtra since the announcement of elections. Avinash Pandey comes from Nagpur, Maharashtra. In such a situation, being the home constituency, the credibility is at stake, but UP is also in charge of Congress. Avinash Pandey did not campaign on any seat in the UP by-elections, but is seen fighting for Maha Vikas Aghadi on all the seats in Maharashtra.
Naseemuddin Siddiqui, the Muslim face of UP Congress, has also camped in Maharashtra. Congress MP from Saharanpur Imran Masood, Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi and Salman Khurshid are staying away from the by-election campaign. Similarly, former Congress leader Ajay Kumar Lallu and MP Pramod Tiwari have also not been seen campaigning on any seat in the by-elections. All the leaders of UP Congress are campaigning in Maharashtra by-elections.
Congress state president Ajay Rai said that after returning from Wayanad, he was called for Maharashtra election campaign. Apart from this, many big leaders of Congress were deployed in Maharashtra elections, in UP by-elections local Congress leaders are completely campaigning for SP. Anil Yadav, General Secretary of UP Congress Organization, says that Priyanka Gandhi herself is contesting the elections from Wayanad, due to which she was busy in her seat. Maharashtra is in elections since voting.
At the same time, SP spokesperson Azam Khan says that all the parties included in the alliance should have started campaigning for the by-elections. On behalf of SP, the parties of India Alliance were also formally asked to campaign. SP spokesperson does not make any comment about Congress, but definitely says that the by-election is as important for the SP as it is for the India alliance. In such a situation, all the leaders of the India Alliance should take the UP by-elections as seriously as the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav had completely changed the political atmosphere of UP by holding several rallies together, but this pair of two boys were not seen together in the UP by-elections. Congress definitely supported SP. But since senior Congress leaders are not campaigning, SP is trying to navigate its political waters alone. The political importance of the by-election for SP can also be understood that Akhilesh Yadav, who was maintaining distance from Azamgarh by-election, is seen sweating on all the 9 seats this time.
Even though Congress is supporting SP in the UP by-elections, the contest has become quite interesting with the entry of candidates from BSP to Chandrashekhar Azad and Asaduddin Owaisi to AIMIM. Except RLD on Meerapur seat and BJP on Kundarki seat, all the parties have placed their bet on the Muslim candidate. Due to this, the political equation of SP seems to be getting disturbed on both these seats. Due to being with Congress, SP got the votes of both Muslims and Dalits in the Lok Sabha elections outright, but this does not seem to be happening in the by-elections. In such a situation, keeping distance of big Congress leaders from SP's platform can also become a cause of concern.
