Congress gauges mood of up floating voters

The Congress is assessing the mood of floating voters in Uttar Pradesh whose decisive votes had given a clear mandate to the BSP and the Samajwadi Party in the last two Assembly polls.

While Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be undertaking a “padyatra” in Bundelkhand in the third week of next month, party officials have been asked to give their assessment of each Assembly constituency of the total 403 seats within a month. The Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls are expected in the next 15 months.

While an AICC official on Tuesday said the participation of people in Congress programmes is increasing after the Bihar polls, he sees the Mayawati-led party as the main rival of the Congress.

“If the ruling Samajwadi Party is facing strong anti-incumbency, the BJP cannot win elections on positive programmes and development. Therefore, it has to play the divisive card to polarise people on communal lines,” he said.

Floating voters, who have seen caste and communal politics in the last 25 years, have seen its limitations and thus feel that the agenda of the state should now be governance and development. They will judge political parties and their leaders on this criterion. Ms Mayawati had previously got a clear mandate due to her tough stand against goonda raj but she lost power on the corruption issue.

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav could not identify himself with governance due to interference by seniors in his own Samajwadi Party and the government whereas Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar succeeded and defeated the BJP.

The AICC is against playing either a caste card or Hindu card to attract dalits, OBCs and upper caste Hindus because this will help the Samajwadi Party, BSP and the BJP.

“We can be recovered only by reviving the fighting spirit, instil confidence among party workers as token protests and photo ops cannot help in the long run,” the party leaders feel.