Bringing the Sheila magic to Uttar Pradesh
Announcing three-time Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit as the party's face for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election may not help regaining the lost space in the most crucial election of the country. Counting her age and lost roots in the State, may work against her performance as the Chief Minister in Delhi. In a State where the party is out of power for nearly three decades, projecting an old war horse like Dikshit may not yield expected results. For now, as advised by the poll pundits, the party may win a few seats and with this, it can bargain reasonably well in a hung Assembly for a bigger flesh. But ironically, Dikshit who failed to win her own Assembly seat in last Delhi Assembly election and currently sinking deep in her corruption scandals, what message and impact her candidature will carry to an already dying party, is doubtful. Talking about her management of the Delhi statecraft wherein she was in control for successive three terms, the affairs of politically sensitive Uttar Pradesh can be no match for her even if the party wins the mandate of the people under her leadership. Delhi is a city State and had the presence of only one rival political party ie the BJP till she won her second term as the Chief Minister, whereas Uttar Pradesh has the record of having the most faction-ridden political parties with master politicians like Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Samajwadi Prty president Mulayam Singh Yadav and of course the mighty BJP. The Congress is nowhere in the scene except both the indispensable Gandhis regularly coming from their family bastions without even factoring much into the Assembly constituencies under Amethi and Rae Bareily. By declaring a chief ministerial candidate way ahead of the poll, the Congress has literally come out of its decades old Nehru-Gandhi strategy of keeping the people, particularly the party workers in suspense till the last moment. It seems the party has learnt from the BJP, the big disciplined party of the country which has gained enormously in almost all the recent elections, by naming in advance the chief ministerial and surprisingly, the prime ministerial candidate. Unbelievably, both Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi have taken such an unexpected decision, breaking away from the dictionary of the grand old party, only by heeding to a poll strategist. Does this advice matter so muchIJ It needs to be keenly observed for sure. However it shows how the Congress is gradually embarking on a road either to adapt with the changing dynamics of India's young voters or recognising the ideas of the young turks (mainly groaning in frustration under Rahul Gandhi).
Is it a master plan to save the remaining grace and relevance of the Gandhis in the Congress partyIJ The party which is fast facing obliteration from Uttar Pradesh should have drawn out a different strategy by posing a younger candidate who may have well-versed with ground realities of the State. With Dikshit, it is felt that Congress is making her a scapegoat to save the faces Rahul Gandhi and Congress scion Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Trying to avoid another humiliating defeat on the heads of the Gandhi scions, where the race is for the largest number of seats (ie 403), the party may have filed an aging leader for whom losing will hardly matter in her future career. It is heard that the poll strategists have suggested the names of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, along with Dikshit. But the Gandhi siblings have refused to sacrifice their heads in a crucial State like Uttar Pradesh. How the new found connection of ‘bahu' and ‘Brahmin' legacy really works in the much talked about Assembly election is to be seen.