Ahead of 2027 Assembly Polls, Congress Relies on Balanced Social Formula in UP Organisational Revamp

New Delhi: With three months left for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, the Congress has revamped its organisational leadership in the state. The party on October 2 appointed MLA Aradhana Misra ‘Mona’ as its new state president, replacing Ajay Rai, the former five-time legislator who gave prime minister Narendra Modi a run for his money in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Varanasi.

The Congress also appointed outspoken MP from Saharanpur Imran Masood as its state “working president”. Alok Prasad, a leader belonging to a Dalit community and Devendra Nishad, who is from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category – both hailing from the Gorakhpur division in eastern UP – were appointed as senior vice-presidents. The party also named MLA Virendra Chaudhary as the new leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

The organisational revamp in itself – especially the transition from Rai to Misra, both of whom belong to dominant social groups – does not inherently indicate a major shift in narrative or spark immediate electoral excitement. It might even appear as a conservative calculation aimed at maintaining internal harmony rather than experimenting with a completely fresh or disruptive face.

Misra's family has deep roots within the Congress organisation

However, on paper at least, the new appointments collectively tick all the requisite boxes for the party as it attempts to project a broader, more inclusive social base of leaders from the limited options currently available within its ranks. It also presents a comparatively less combative state president vis-a-vis the Congress’ primary ally, the Samajwadi Party (SP), just as the two partners prepare to enter serious seat-sharing negotiations ahead of the election. All five new appointees have electoral experience.

Though the Congress secured six Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2024 while contesting in alliance with the Samajwadi Party – a coalition that collectively won 43 out of the state's 80 parliamentary seats – it holds just two seats in the 403-member state Assembly: those represented by Misra and Chaudhary.

Misra, the outgoing CLP leader, and her family have deep roots within the Congress organisation. Her father, Pramod Tiwari, is a sitting Rajya Sabha member and a veteran former legislator from Pratapgarh. Tiwari famously transformed the Rampur Khas constituency in Pratapgarh into an impregnable bastion, winning the seat for nine consecutive terms between 1980 and 2012. In 2014, after Tiwari was elected to the Rajya Sabha, Misra successfully retained Rampur Khas for the party in a bypoll. She subsequently secured comfortable wins in both the 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections even though the Congress suffered a downslide in the state.

By placing her at the helm of the UP unit ahead of a crucial electoral contest, the Congress hopes to cover several political bases. Misra is a woman leader. She hails from the dominant Brahmin community, which continues to exercise a disproportionate influence over the political and social narrative in the state. Furthermore, since both she and her father maintain warm, long-standing equations with the Gandhi family as well as the top leadership of the Samajwadi Party (SP), her elevation is expected to significantly smooth out seat-sharing negotiations and inter-party coordination between the alliance partners in the coming weeks.

In terms of caste dynamics, her appointment does not mark a radical departure; the outgoing state president, Ajay Rai, belongs to the Bhumihar community – another dominant landed group, albeit numerically smaller and less politically widespread than the Brahmins.

While Rai, a former Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activist and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA prior to joining the Congress, offered the grand old party aggressive muscle on the streets, Misra acts as an organisational stabilizer, rewarded for her enduring loyalty to the party and the Gandhis. She is also not one who gets into controversies.

A strong, positive signal to Muslim voters

In naming Masood as the working president, the Congress leadership has sent a strong, positive signal to the Muslim voters, particularly across the crucial western region of Uttar Pradesh. Like Misra, Masood belongs to an established political dynasty. A former MLA who has navigated across various political parties over the years, he ultimately secured entry into the Lok Sabha in 2024 as a Congress candidate from Saharanpur with the backing of the Samajwadi Party.

Prior to that win, he had endured a difficult electoral run despite maintaining widespread personal popularity and remaining constantly in the political fray.

The nephew of former five-time MP Rasheed Masood, he was elected chairman of the Saharanpur Nagar Palika Parishad in 2006 and subsequently won his first and only Assembly election in 2007 as an independent candidate. In both the 2012 and 2017 elections, he lost tight contests from the Nakur Assembly seat in Saharanpur by narrow margins.

Before his 2024 victory, he had contested the Lok Sabha election twice without success. In 2014, amidst intense controversy over an old video clip where he made inflammatory remarks regarding Narendra Modi, he finished second in a sharply polarised contest. In 2019, when the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and SP contested in a formidable alliance, Masood – despite finishing third – managed to retain a substantial base by polling over 2 lakh votes as a Congress candidate.

With his 2024 victory significantly elevating his political stature, the firebrand leader has adopted an uninhibited, aggressive tone. However, that outspokenness has occasionally come at the cost of causing public friction within the INDIA bloc. On multiple occasions, Masood has publicly inflated the Congress’s contribution to the INDIA bloc’s impressive 2024 showing in Uttar Pradesh, claiming that Akhilesh Yadav’s party managed to win 37 seats primarily due to the solid backing of Congress and the burgeoning popularity of Rahul Gandhi.

On other occasions, he has sparked heated words between leaders of the allies by aggressively pitching Gandhi as the sole, indispensable leader of the national Opposition, even though the Congress remains a junior player in Uttar Pradesh and SP chief Yadav is the undisputed face of the state's opposition and its chief ministerial candidate.

Masood has also consistently made news for over-the-top remarks demanding that the Congress be treated as an equal partner and insisting that the party's recent growth must translate into a significantly higher share of contested seats. He recently suggested that while the alliance with the SP was necessary, it should not come at the expense of the Congress's organisational expansion.

Samajwadi Party leaders have openly hit back at Masood for his boisterousness, even as the ruling BJP has repeatedly leveraged his comments to point to underlying disharmony between the alliance partners. On September 21, Ramji Lal Suman, a senior SP Rajya Sabha MP, directly responded to Masood’s assertion that no party could defeat the BJP without the Congress, warning him that such public posturing was detrimental to the alliance's health.

"An alliance with the Congress is the need of the hour. There will be an alliance between the Congress and us, but I want to know why those who have no official role in the alliance discussions are unnecessarily making statements that could harm the health of the alliance but cannot benefit it,” said Suman.

Meanwhile, Virendra Chaudhary, the newly appointed CLP leader, belongs to the Kurmi (OBC) community. He contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Maharajganj, where he finished second after securing over 5.5 lakh votes and losing by a narrow margin of 35,451 votes. The two senior vice-presidents, Alok Prasad and Devendra Nishad, have both contested Assembly elections in the past, though neither has secured a win.

A socially representative coalition

By positioning a Brahmin, a Muslim, a Nishad (OBC), and a Pasi (Dalit) as leading figures within its state organisation alongside a Kurmi (OBC) as its floor leader in the Assembly, the Congress is seeking to present a balanced, socially representative coalition as it and its ally SP gear up to confront the formidable Hindutva and caste formations assembled by the ruling BJP. Adding to this organisational formation, the Congress team in UP is currently being overseen by AICC in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam, a prominent and vocal leader belonging to a Dalit community.

Following her appointment, Misra affirmed that the state unit would "move forward in accordance with the guidelines of the national leadership, ensuring that people of all castes and religions are accorded respect and a place" within the organisational structure.

On paper, the Congress has covered all its social and political bases. However, whether and how effectively this setup translates into electoral public support on the ground – while harmoniously complementing the PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) slogan championed by its ally, the SP, in such a short window – will become fully evident when the state goes to the polls early next year.

Omar Rashid is an independent journalist.

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