Lucknow: Considering the vote of the Dalit population of Uttar Pradesh, which once stood as a rock behind Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, the Congress on Saturday named Kanshi Ram’s aide and former BSP leader Brijlal Khabri as a member of the UP Congress Committee. Appointed new chairman. UPCC), is closing the vacancy of six months for the post.
The party also divided its UP unit into six provinces (area) and an appointed”province president (Regional President)” for each of these regions, namely, Paschim, Braj, Awadh, Bundelkhand, Prayag and Purvanchal.
The party’s new regional chiefs in UP include Naseemuddin Siddiqui, five-time MLAs Ajay Rai and Nakul Dubey, who joined the Congress only in May this year. point. Rai also contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in 2019.
Former UPCC general secretary Anil Yadav from Etawah, administrative in-charge Yogesh Dixit and Ferenda MLA Virendra Chaudhary are the other three regional heads.
The appointments were made a few days before interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi stepped down. The election of the party president is to be held on October 17, in which senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge will contest against MP Shashi Tharoor for the top post.
In 2016, the Congress appointed four vice-presidents representing different regions of Uttar Pradesh, but the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has now split the party’s state unit into six parts, each with a regional The chairman is in charge.
“In Sonbhadra, our leader Priyanka Gandhi” Yes Fought for Dalits and now after 28 years Congress has a Dalit President in Brijlal Khabri. He is a tall Dalit leader who has worked with Kanshi Ram YesUP Congress spokesperson Sachin Rawat told ThePrint.
Read also: UP’s new BJP president said, ‘Party bigger than the government, focus on winning the seats we lost’
Mayawati’s ‘eyes and ears’
Former UP Chief Minister Mayawati once did described Khabri, who as his “eye and ear” in the state, rose through the ranks to become the national general secretary of the BSP.
Khabri, a former MP from Jalaun in the Bundelkhand region of UP, started his political career as a member of the Bahujan Students Union.Bahujan‘ community Which was the training ground for many BSP leaders.
While his political beginnings were humble, Khabri got his first taste of electoral success in 1999, when he was elected as an MP from the Jalaun-Garautha Lok Sabha constituency.
He lost the seat in 2004 and returned to Parliament in 2008 as a Rajya Sabha MP and failed to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Jalaun for the second time in 2014 on a BSP ticket.
He joined the Congress in 2016 and was made the national vice-president of the party’s Dalit cell. In June 2021, there was news appointed Secretary in-charge of Bihar, a post he held till Saturday.
With his appointment as the UPCC president, the Congress is making a play to regain lost ground in the state, where it was reduced to two seats in the March 2022 assembly elections.
Khabri’s appointment comes after a war of words On repeated mention of Dr BR Ambedkar by Yadav during SP’s two-day run between Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati National Convention last month.
Akhilesh’s remark that the BJP lost some seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections due to the strength of the “Lohiaist and Ambedkarite alliance”, sparked speculation about the revival of the SP-BSP alliance before 2024.
‘BMD’ formula
When asked about Khabri’s appointment and the six regional chiefs, UP Congress leaders acknowledged that the move was an attempt at social engineering as part of a ‘Brahmin-Muslim-Dalit (BMD)’ outreach ahead of the 2024 elections. Is.
Virendra Choudhary, who has been appointed UPCC regional chief of Purvanchal (East UP), said the move is in line with the Congress’s outreach to Dalits, backward and minorities, who are facing “atrocities under the BJP rule”. province,
“The Congress will try to strengthen the organization at the booth level and at the unit level. a feeling that [Dalit] Society has lost faith in Mayawati. In the past also, the Congress has been working for Dalits, backward and minorities,” Chaudhary told ThePrint.
While 87 per cent of Jatavs – a section of Dalits seen as Mayawati’s core base – had voted for the BSP in the 2017 UP assembly elections, that number dropped to 65 per cent in 2022. post election analysis Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).
Explaining the rationale behind the move, Dhiraj Gurjar, AICC in-charge secretary of Uttar Pradesh informed that the regional heads of the UPCC include a Muslim, two Brahmins, a Kurmi (OBC) and a Yadav face.
“These are the people who have made their presence felt at the grassroots level and have been MLAs/MPs earlier. Brijlal Khabrik Yes There are two-time MPs in both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. He is recognized as a Dalit activist and has worked with him for a long time.
He said: “Brahmins, Muslims and Dalits are the natural vote bank of the Congress in UP and we will try to strengthen it. Our 2024 mission will be based on this social engineering.”
(Edited by Amritansh Arora)