Ever since UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu submitted his resignation as per the direction of AICC president Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the party headquarter gives the deserted look. No senior leader visits the party office nor there has been any activity. Only disciplinary committee is active in taking action against those who wants to put forward their views or are critical of certain party leaders.

AICC member Zeshaan Haider who was recently expelled from party for criticising the leadership claimed that several thousand party leaders and workers were either removed or walked out of the party ever since Priyanka Gandhi took over as AICC general secretary.

There has been no review of reasons for the humiliating defeat in UP assembly despite public announcement made by Priyanka Gandhi in the media. Senior party leaders said that Priyanka Gandhi should have called the meeting of all candidates and senior leaders to review the defeat on every seat that party contested.

At a time when ruling BJP and all wings of the sangh parivar are engaged in the preparation for crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Congress has yet to decide as who would become UPCC chief and his team members.

The minority cell of Congress is more busy in criticising Samajwadi Party and Akhilesh Yadav rather than making any roadmap to win over the support of Muslims who had been traditional vote bank of Congress Party.

No doubt this is biggest challenge for Congress leadership as more than 80 per cent of Muslims voted for Samajwadi Party in assembly polls which emerged as main challenger to ruling BJP. Congress has to formulate the strategy to bring back brahmins from BJP and dalits from BSP and BJP.

Significantly enough, BJP succeeded in weaning away large chunk of dalit votes from Bahujan Samaj Party in recently concluded assembly polls. Congress leaders still remember when Party ruled for several decades with brahmin, dalit and Muslims being the core vote bank of the Party. Congress got more than 300 seats in 1985 assembly polls.

Congress started losing support at ground level when Party entered into alliance with BSP in 1996. Congress was given 100 seats while BSP contested in 300 seats. After the polls Mayawati dissolved the alliance and blamed Congress for not transferring their votes to BSP candidates.

Again in 2017, Congress hired strategist Prashant Kishor to guide the Party and he prepared the rank and file to fight Samajwadi Party and BJP. So much so, Mrs Sheila Dixit was projected as chief minister of the state during the early part of the campaign. PK organised alliance between the Congress and the SP but it did not work. PK complained that he did not get free hand while the SP was jittery that the Congress contested the seats where the Party had little base.

Unless Congress leadership decides on new UPCC president and formulate strategy to win back traditional vote bank consisting brahmin, dalits and Muslims it would be very difficult for the Party to face Lok Sabha polls. (IPA Service)