UP: Next-gen leaders leave party, Congress struggles to regain lost ground

Several families that have been synonymous with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh for decades are now losing their new generation to rival organisations, making it even more difficult for the party to reclaim lost ground in the crucial state.

These are the families of Congress stalwarts like Kamlapati Tripathi (Varanasi), Noor Bano (Rampur), Jitendra Prasada (Shahjahanpur), and Kunwar C P N Singh (Kushinagar), who were staunch supporters of the party.

About their new generation, on the other hand, has turned elsewhere. Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, Haider Ali Khan, Jitin Prasada, and RPN Singh have all defected from these families, leaving the already weakened Congress to pursue their own political careers.

While Jitin Prasada and R P N Singh joined the BJP, Haider Ali Khan is now the Apna Dal (S) candidate for Rampur’s Suar seat, and Laliteshwar Tripathi has joined Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

There is speculation that Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav may select Lalitesh Pati Tripathi as an assembly poll candidate, despite the fact that Banerjee has already stated that her TMC will not contest in UP. Instead, it will back the SP.

While rivals mock the grand old party for abandoning a “sinking ship,” the party has put up a brave front. Jitendra Prasada also served as a political advisor to two prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and P V Narasimha Rao in 1994, and ran for president of the Congress against Sonia Gandhi in 2000.

The departure of these prominent leaders, as well as others, just before the assembly elections has made it difficult for general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to improve the party’s Vidhan Sabha tally in 2022.

In 2017, Congress won only seven seats as part of an alliance with the SP. Two MLAs from Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency have joined the saffron party.

Updated by Deveshi Gupta