Appointments of Raj Babbar, Imran Masood show Rahul Gandhi forgets defeats fast

Appointment of Raj Babbar as president of Uttar Pradesh Congress and Imran Masood as one of the vice-presidents of the party is a clear pointer that Rahul Gandhi has not learnt any lessons, either from the debacle of the 2012 state Assembly polls or from 2014 Parliamentary polls. Both Babbar and Masood had been with the Samajwadi Party and turned to Congress when they thought their innings was over in their parent party. Babbar’s claim to fame in politics is that in 2009, he defeated Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple in a by-election in Firozabad Parliamentary constituency. Masood’s claim to fame is his famous hate speech made in the run-up to the 2014 Parliamentary elections, where he said he “would chop” Narendra Modi “into pieces”. Both lost the elections comprehensively, with Babbar having the distinction of creating a record of losing by 5.65 lakh votes to Gen VK Singh of BJP in Ghaziabad and Masood having the distinction of getting negligible Hindu votes in Saharanpur, despite being a Congress candidate. Two years down the line, Rahul Gandhi thinks that Babbar and Masood have enough organisational skills and mass appeal to lead Congress to victory in UP polls, due in another six months time. Imran Masood’s rise to prominence in the organisational ladder, speaks volumes of Congress’ apparent Muslim tilt in the coming elections. This is also evident from the fact that the appointment came days after Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh hit the headlines for surfacing on a video where he hailed controversial terror sympathiser and Islamic preacher Zakir Naik as a messenger of peace. In subsequent interviews to the media, Singh remained unapologetic about his sharing the dais and making laudatory remarks about Naik. Masood, no doubt, has appeal among Muslims in Saharanpur and the neighbouring districts of communally-sensitive Western Uttar Pradesh, but then there are two factors which make him as much a liability as much Congress thinks he is an asset. First, his name has an instant polarising and counter-polarising effect. He has the potential to win an assembly election for himself, but in other areas where he would campaign, a reverse polarisation would help BJP and lead to a lose-lose situation for Congress. Given the Congress’ non-existential position, the Muslims are unlikely to favour the party when strategic voting consideration comes into play, Masood notwithstanding. [caption id=“attachment_2789440” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] The Congress in its own wisdom has decided to play an aggressive pro-Muslim card for UP elections. Incidentally, the Congress’ central party in-charge for UP election is Ghulam Nabi Azad. The party will be fighting for its share of Muslim votes with a formidable Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. On the surface of it appears to be contrary to what Prashant Kishor, Congress’ outsourced poll strategist had suggested: win Brahmins first. Even a retired Sheila Dikshit is unwilling to bear the high-sounding burden of the party’s chief ministerial candidate. But Rahul Gandhi would perhaps be hoping that once it regains Muslim backing then the Brahmins would automatically come to its fold. Babbar’s credentials on the other hand is hailed as “caste neutral” — a Punjabi born and brought up in Agra, in a deeply caste-infested UP politics. A filmy hero who made a name for himself in 1980 playing the role of a rapist in BR Chopra’s Insaf Ka Tarazu. But his appointment has re-opened fissures in the party. He has run over boots of two other solid contenders for the post, Jitin Prasada and Rajesh Mishra. Babbar like Masood is blessed by Rahul Gandhi. As a local UP Congressman said “yeh dono unki pasand hai (Rahul Gandhi) jinko aaj koi pasand nahi karta (these two have liking of a person who is hardly liked by anyone)”. It is no mean statement of a situation, as he pointed out, that “even as Rahul Gandhi is back in the country, nobody is actually aware of his whereabouts. People have perhaps stopped caring about him.” Turn to 2012 when Rahul Gandhi was leading the Congress campaign in UP as an angry young man with his ‘Jara Sochiye’ pre-poll punch line. Digvijaya Singh was Congress general secretary in-charge of the party and had made the ‘fake’ Batala House encounter as one of the principal campaign issues to appeal to Muslim electorates in Eastern UP. But in the heart of Azamgarh’s Shibli National College, he and Rahul Gandhi were booed. The Congress poll strategy, and to an extent candidate selection, was sourced to two of Rahul Gandhi’s favourites — Beni Prasad Verma in eastern UP and Rashid Masood (Imran Masood’s uncle) in Western UP. Again like Babbar and Imran Masood, both Verma and Rashid Masood had come from Samajwadi Party. There was a great deal of resentment among the tradition Congress workers and leaders, howsoever depleted their ranks had been. They practically sat at home during the elections, and in the final, Congress could manage only around two dozen seats, around five percent of the strength of state assembly. Beni Prasad Verma is back in the Samjawadi Party and has been elected to Rajya Sabha on its ticket. Rashid Masood has the singular distinction of being the first MP to be disqualified of his Rajya Sabha membership in October 2013 on conviction with four years in jail. The Congress then ruled at the Centre and Masood was a Rajya Sabha MP. The Congress had blamed the 2012 loss to organisation in UP. Congress has not cared to turn new leaves of recent history. There could be Priyanka Gandhi’s effect into that.