In Uttar Pradesh, Congress, along with Samajwadi Party (SP), had defeated the BJP-led NDA alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but now the political tension between the two parties is increasing. While SP has decided to support Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi elections, Congress has started efforts to stand on its own in UP for Mission-2027. Congress has undertaken the exercise of overhauling its UP organization from booth to lake, block, city, district and state level and implementing it in a new way.
A month after Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge had dissolved the state, district, city and block committees of UP Congress, the work of forming the organization in a new way has been started. Organization creation exercise was carried out from January 6 to January 12. Senior leaders of UP Congress, including UP in-charge Avinash Pandey, state president Ajay Rai, KL Sharma and co-in-charges of all six zones, camped in Lucknow and met party leaders and workers separately.
The party brainstormed with leaders willing to be part of new teams at various levels with a focus on rebuilding the party organization in Uttar Pradesh based on its objective of 'building the future on the foundation of the past'. Congress has divided UP into six zones, which include Awadh, Eastern UP, Western UP, Prayagraj, Braj and Bundelkhand and Kanpur.
All the zone in-charges first held a meeting in the districts of their respective areas and then a meeting was held in the state office. In such a situation, 75 districts and 58 urban units of the state are to be formed.
Since Rahul Gandhi was elected MP from Rae Bareli, his entire focus is on UP, while Priyanka Gandhi's eyes are also fixed on UP. Recently, Priyanka Gandhi held a meeting with UP Congress leaders in Delhi and gave them the skills to build the organization in a new way.
He had given the message in clear words that grassroots level leaders have to be given place at all levels in the organization, through whom the party can be built in a new way. Priyanka had also said that Dalits, OBCs and Muslims have to give significant participation in the organization.
The work of creating the organization was started only after the order of Rahul-Priyanka, but Avinash Pandey was holding meetings in many districts in a day. In this way, a district was being finalized in a meeting of 15 to 20 minutes, but many questions have started being raised regarding this. A meeting was being held with the leaders of all the districts of a zone in one day.
However, the zonal in-charges of the state have formed their own separate panel for the organization. The name that will be finalized by the state committee after the week-long marathon meeting at the state headquarters, will be reconciled with the meeting held with the zonal in-charge. Only after that the name of the organization will be announced, but before that the approval of Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is necessary.
Actually, Congress has been out of power in UP for three and a half decades and is desperate for its return. Congress is trying to regain its lost political base in the UP organization, for which it wants to re-establish the organization. Congress has taken this step due to deteriorating relations with India Alliance ally SP. SP-Congress had jointly contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Out of 80 seats in the state, both had won 43 (37 for SP and 6 for Congress), while NDA could get only 36 (33 for BJP).
A senior Congress leader said that a target has been set to prepare the UP organization within 100 days. Due to the fight for social justice that Rahul Gandhi is fighting, the party has made a strategy to give special attention to Dalits and OBCs in the organization. For the last several days, a long meeting of senior Congress leaders has been held at the Lucknow Congress headquarters and will hold meetings with officials of the party's frontal organizations. To strengthen the organization, there will be a mixed form of existing Congress leaders and workers as well as new and old Congress people.
Congress plans to prepare to contest all the seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2027 assembly elections, in view of this, strengthening the organization at the grassroots level is necessary. We are preparing our people up to the booth level in every assembly.
In such a situation, Congress also wants to create a strong social engineering through the organization, for which a strategy has been made to give special place to Dalits, OBCs and Muslims from booth to state level in the organization. However, a section of the party is insisting on forming the Congress organization on the old model, but the Dalit and OBC leaders of the party in the state are not ready for that.
