The best option: Why the Congress must field Priyanka Gandhi as its UP chief ministerial candidate

The Congress still hasn’t overcome its hesitation in projecting Priyanka Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh, evident from the different voices emanating from the party. One leader says she will lead the Congress charge for the 2017 Assembly elections in this politically important state, another that she is slated to address 150 rallies, a third, that her role will be much larger than before.

This hint-hint, wink-wink style of politics is bound to fail in an India where voters increasingly want to receive messages shorn of all ambiguities. This applies to the Congress more than other parties, lagging as it is a distant fourth, as of now, in the race to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

It is unlikely that people would vote a laggard without knowing who its chief ministerial candidate is, if not for anything else than to assess whether he or she is capable of providing governance remarkably different from that of others. This is pertinent to the Congress because it isn’t in power at the Centre.

Thus, it can’t ask for votes on the promise of showering goodies on Lucknow. Its only card is to project a chief ministerial candidate whose very persona promises a better future for the state. Battered over the last 25 years in Uttar Pradesh, there isn’t anyone in the Congress other than Priyanka Gandhi to symbolise hope in that state.

No doubt, states have voted for the party ruling at the Centre in Assembly elections without being told in advance who its chief ministerial candidate is. It used to happen with monotonous frequency during Indira Gandhi’s dominance. A throwback to the past was glimpsed in 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party won three states – Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand – without declaring its chief ministerial candidates before the polls.

In these three states Prime Minister Narendra Modi, still riding the crest of the wave that swept him to power, assured the voters that he would personally monitor administration in each. Yet, when faced with credible, popular chief ministerial faces of rival parties, the BJP crashed in Delhi and Bihar. Chastened, the party abandoned the strategy of harnessing itself to Modi, as it did in Assam this year.

This should indeed be a lesson to the Congress that charismatic personalities, among whom Priyanka Gandhi is decidedly one, have their limits, particularly when their parties are not in power at the Centre.

Why voters want clarity

Voters wish to fathom who could rule them – a consequence of strong personality-based state parties mushrooming all around – what his or her capabilities are, the policies he or she is likely to pursue, and the sections of the population most likely to gain in the next five years.

Uttar Pradesh knows the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati and the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav rather intimately, as it also does a few leaders from the BJP – for instance, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and that irrepressible rabble-rouser, Yogi Adityanath. Their only match from the Congress is Priyanka Gandhi, obviously, ruling out Rahul Gandhi, who can’t possibly abandon the national ship.

Then again, it won’t be wrong to assume that large sections of Dalits and lower Other Backward Classes will take immense pride in Mayawati becoming chief minister. They can be sure of gaining from her rule. It is this support base of the Bahujan Samaj Party that the BJP wants to cannibalise.

Similarly, Akhilesh Yadav’s return will depend on the momentum his caste and the relatively more prosperous OBCs, such as Kurmis, will provide him, given their close identification with the Samajwadi Party. Muslims will feel secure under both Mayawati and Yadav. Their preference for either of them will depend, as always, on the assessment whether the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party is best placed to vanquish the BJP in each constituency.

The Congress believes Priyanka Gandhi’s persona will help it to woo Brahmins, once ardent supporters of the Congress and the Gandhis. However, over the last 25 years, Brahmins have predominantly switched their allegiance to the BJP.

Should Brahmins return to the Congress, courtesy the younger Gandhi, even Muslims might, for the two-year rule of the Modi government has underscored to them the importance of bolstering a national alternative. In Priyanka Gandhi they could see that possibility.

The Congress has always secured a percentage of Dalits voters, however small, largely because the older generation remains beholden to the Congress for making their life relatively less oppressive.

Matter of clout

However, for this calculation to fructify, it is vital for the Congress to project Priyanka as its chief ministerial candidate. This is because a switching of allegiance from one party to another enhances or diminishes the clout that social groups have at block, bank and thana – the veritable tripod on which rural India rests. Indeed, the support base of the party in power determines who belonging to which caste wins tenders and corners development projects. Even the chances of underworld dons surviving depends on whether their castes supported the ruling party.

Social groups are averse to switching their allegiance unless they feel the new recipient of their votes stands a good chance to win the elections. It is Priyanka Gandhi who holds out that possibility, no one else in the Congress. For voters inclined to making such calculations, she will seem both a strong possibility and personality who can dismantle and reconfigure the arrangement the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and the BJP have put in their pockets of influence.

There are other dynamics too in play – for instance, everyone wants governance that is efficient, fair, develops the state and generates employment. As such, the Congress doesn’t have a proven administrator in its stable in Uttar Pradesh. Though Gandhi is untested herself, yet voters would know that she won’t be allowed to fail in the state, largely because of the telling impact it could have on the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She will have the rich administrative experience of Congress leaders in Delhi to bank upon.

Then there is the matter of faith, that irrational factor that has seen the Gandhis lead the Congress to power in the past, regardless of its many failings, which manifest periodically.

An election challenge

Conversely, not naming Priyanka Gandhi as the party’s chief ministerial candidate, and only getting her to campaign, will deeply offend the people. They are bound to feel that the Congress thinks of them as fools who will vote for it just because she is a Gandhi. The Congress must understand India hasn’t had an Indira relapse.

It will also have people wonder why the Gandhis are reluctant to shoulder responsibility. It will have them contemplate the grim scenario of having to live under the system of diarchy – of the Gandhis wielding power but not being responsible for it. Uttar Pradesh isn’t quite looking for a rubber stamp as chief minister, given the choices other parties have to offer to its people.

But more than anything else, it will tell the people that the Gandhis live in mortal fear of losing an election. The proponents of self-fulfilling theory will tell you that those who fear losing tend to often lose. The Congress, therefore, will have conceded defeat in case it doesn’t name Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate.

It is also possible that the Congress hasn’t named Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate as it hopes to stitch an alliance with Mayawati, regardless of her disavowal. The Bahujan Samaj Party will likely undergo a meltdown in case Mayawati fails to become chief minister. Likewise, the Congress can’t afford to have the BJP winning Uttar Pradesh two years before the next Lok Sabha election.

From this perspective, Mayawati will become the face of the Bahujan Samaj Party-Congress alliance, and Priyanka Gandhi will, in a way, play the role Lalu Prasad Yadav played in the Grand Alliance in Bihar last year. A Bahujan Samaj Party-Congress alliance will, in all likelihood, catch the BJP and the Samajwadi Party out of the popping crease.

But will it revive the Congress? In the past, whoever aligned with the Bahujan Samaj Party was weakened in the long run. Mayawati as chief minister could prove too costly for the Congress to wish for a tie-up before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Whichever way you look, it makes sense for the Congress to declare Gandhi as its chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh. It will be a bold measure, bound to impress people in and outside that state. Voters love decisiveness as long as it doesn’t come wrapped in arrogance and a sense of entitlement. A defeat doesn’t mean there can’t be a second coming. Mayawati can tell Priyanka Gandhi a few things about that.

Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist in Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, has as its backdrop the demolition of the Babri Masjid.