New Delhi: The Congress is working on a strategy to improve its position ahead of the local body elections in 2026 and assembly elections in 2027 in Uttar Pradesh. Ahead of the elections in the BJP-ruled state, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has pushed forward the Congress’ plan to revive the party in UP through social engineering.
Rahul Gandhi, a Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, has earlier represented the neighbouring Amethi parliamentary constituency in the lower house. They have been trying to revive the Congress in the home state of the Nehru-Gandhi family for the last two decades. However, they have not had much success in this.
Rahul Gandhi had decided to retain Rae Bareli and leave his second parliamentary seat Wayanad in Kerala to better focus on Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress won 6 out of 80 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Earlier, the Congress had won only 1 Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 national elections and only 2 seats in 2014. In the 2022 assembly elections, the Congress managed to win only 2 seats out of 403 seats, indicating the weakness of its organisation.
Rahul, who has since been working to promote the Congress organisation in Uttar Pradesh, has now directed the state team to hold caste-based conferences in the state during October. That is because, before the big battle for the local body elections in 2026 and the state elections in 2027, many caste groups like Nishad, Pasi, Rajbhar, Maurya, Kushwaha, Pasi and Lodhi could join the Congress.
The Uttar Pradesh events are part of Rahul Gandhi’s effort to shift a broader focus on OBCs across the country to counter the BJP’s religious and nationalist agenda. Congress leaders describe their OBC focus as social welfare based on representative populations of different caste groups, while the BJP terms the move as divisive.
Avinash Pandey, the AICC in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, said that the state government has recently banned caste-based rallies. At the same time, the Congress has termed its conferences as a social event and said that the party will go ahead with the scheme.
“Avinash Pandey told ETV India, “”Social events in the state have been going on for a long time and they are part of normal political activity.” We will involve local leaders from different social groups and our party workers associated with those social groups will also participate in these events.
According to the AICC official, the first start of the series of social events will be on October 12 with a farmers’ rally in Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh and other social groups will be covered in other districts like Meerut, Etawah, Aligarh, Varanasi, Jhansi, Kanpur and Gorakhpur in the next two weeks.
Preparatory meetings for social conferences will be held in Lucknow on October 6 under the chairmanship of Pandey. After the caste-based event ends, the Congress is planning to hold large rallies across the state by December 2025 and January 2026 to register its presence. Though the Congress has allied with the Samajwadi Party for the 2024 national elections, social events and rallies will be the Congress’ own solo performances.
AICC secretary-in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Dheeraj Gurjar told ETV India that these are only organisational programmes of the Congress. It aims to strengthen the Congress in all 403 assembly seats across the state. Only then can they strengthen the alliance. He said that, when big rallies are held in winter, they will invite their central leadership to join them as well. He said he was also preparing for the MLC elections.
Gurjar, an MLA in Rajasthan, had recently organised a huge farmers conference in Bhilwara to stage a show of strength against the BJP government. Through the farmers conference to be held on October 12 in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is hoping to make its political ground in the western parts of this important state. Party insiders said a few months ago, leaders of the All India Congress Committee held a meeting with farmer leader Rakesh Tikait seeking the support of the community.
