Sheila Dikshit will help Congress put blame on her in UP
Sheila Dikhsit's appointment as the chief ministerial face of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh will put pressure on the BJP to retain its Brahman vote bank and also complicate its Hamlet-like dilemma - should it name a chief ministerial candidate as it did in Assam or enter the fray with Prime Minister Narendra Modi playing the "hum UP-walle hain" tune.
After weeks of dithering, the Congress and Dikshit finally bit the bullet and the 78-year-old former chief minister of Delhi agreed to be the face of the party's campaign in the mother of all elections.
But Dikshit's appointment is not a forward-looking strategy. The Congress does not have a realistic chance of increasing from its tally of 28 seats in 2012 significantly. The vote share of the party is also unlikely to go up significantly from 11.63 per cent.
After all the hype that the party has created with the appointment of Prashant Kishor as its poll strategist, it is now clear that his appointment, as well as a getting Dikshit to lead the campaign, is aimed at finding the fall guy.
There is no doubt that the Congress is preparing grounds to deflect criticism from the Nehru-Gandhi family in the event of a dismal performance once again in the state. The question is, why did Dikshit agree?
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| Dikshit may not do wonders to the fortunes of the Congress. |
Clearly, Dikshit, like an ageing queen, knows that she can sustain her political relevance, even if she is defeated. It will also give her protection against the corruption case that have been opened up because the Congress will argue that this has been initiated now because of her entering the political arena once again.
Dikshit's decision may not do wonders to the fortunes of the Congress but it surely queers the pitch for the BJP and it will be forced to think.
Brahmins, once the reserve of the Congress, after losing political clout in the state have moved from one party to another. They even grudgingly accepted Mayawati's leadership but with the resurrection of the BJP in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Brahmins moved back to the so-called "Manuwadi" party.
With Dikshit's nomination now, the BJP will no longer be certain of retaining the Brahmin support. One of the primary reasons for the BJP's spectacular performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in which it won 71 seats on its own (73 overall, along with ally Apna Dal) in the state out of a possible 80, was owing to its ability to transcend caste with two measures: all-out communal polarisation between the Hindus and Muslims and secondly, fielding Modi from Varanasi.
Though the party played the backward caste card after the needless use of the "chaiwala" taunt by Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyer, the BJP did not project Modi or itself as a champion of the backward castes.
Dikshit's anointment has to be seen in conjunction with the appointment of Sanjay Singh, a member of the former royal family of Amethi, as the chief of the Congress campaign committee. He is an old loyalist of the Gandhis though he had a stint in the BJP too.
In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, he was victorious from Amethi defeating Captain Satish Sharma - another Nehru-Gandhi loyalist - before losing to Sonia Gandhi in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. His inclusion is also aimed at cutting the upper caste support of the BJP as he is a Thakur, and considerig that it is a community that is short of leaders who are being given prominence in parties, there would be a probable pull towards the Congress.
Dikshit incidentally is as much a Brahmin as Sonia Gandhi. She is actually born a Punjabi Khatri and gets the Brahmin tag courtesy marriage to Vinod Dikshit - the late bureaucrat and son of one-time Indira Gandhi loyalist, Uma Shanker Dikshit.
She has represented Kannauj in Parliament, home of the legendary Kanyakubj Brahmins. If Dikshit does appear to attract the Brahmins, one can easily expect the BJP whisper campaign to point her actual background.
Caste-neutral Raj Babbar will add to the Dikhsit-Singh combine and the COngress hopes he will be able to infuse some value to the campaign.
The BJP will now have to draw up a fresh strategy because it had hoped that no party would nominate any Brahmin as its chief ministerial candidate. The BJP will be particularly worried also in the tier A and B cities as Dikshit may garner fair support. The BJP will have to work doubly hard to wean away the backward castes from the Samajwadi Party as the BSP's base among the Dalits is secure.
The BJP would be tempted to once again opt for the Maharashtra-Haryana-Jharkhand models with Modi leading the charge. But that would risk a loss of face for Modi in the event of the gamble backfiring. Two years before the 2019 parliamentary polls, it would be a huge setback for the BJP.
The decision on Dikshit has opened up the Uttar Pradesh elections without actually hugely boosting the prospects of the Congress.