The Congress Party today announced a fresh list of 78 candidates for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections. The new list, which takes the tally of Congress candidates announced so far to 213, more than the halfway mark of the UP Assembly, reflects the Congress Party’s secular, all-inclusive character, giving substantial representation to all sections of the society, including youth, women, MBCs, SC, etc.

In a state where parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party use fancy terms like social engineering to disguise their selection of candidates on blatantly caste-based lines, the Congress Party has been quite different, if not radical, in their selection of candidates.

Of the 213 candidates selected so far, 75 are from general category, there are 55 OBC candidates, 57 Scheduled Caste candidates, and 26  Minorities. The list of 213 candidates includes 23 women candidates, which is higher than other parties in UP.

In a clear attempt to be inclusive of all sections of society, the Party has selected many Scheduled Caste candidates for open seats that are not in the reserved category. For example, Ms Nirmala Paswan, a SC Zila Parishad Member has been chosen to represent Pipraich, a general category seat. Similarly, Vijay Prakash Pasi, a SC candidate, will represent the Congress Party from Chail, another general category seat.

Twenty three of the 213 candidates selected so far are women. This demonstrates the clear resolve of the Congress Party to bring greater gender balance to its candidate list than has been the norm for political parties of Uttar Pradesh, It is well known that the Congress President Smt Sonia Gandhi has been the key force in national polity behind women’s reservation in all forms of election from Panchayat to  Lok Sabha and the Congress list clearly reflects this.

The Congress list also reflects the resolve of the Grand Old Party to give representation to Most Backward Castes of UP. This is evidenced by the emphasis placed on candidates belonging to the Shakya, Kushwaha, Nishad, Rajbhar, Bind, Banjara and Gadaria-Pal communities, with an unprecedented number of candidates being fielded from these communities.  A clear example of this is Ms Brinda Kushwaha, a three-time Block Pramukh  who has been given the Party ticket from Bhatparrani, the constituency in UP which boasts the largest number of Kushwahas in the state.

In keeping with the Party General Secretary Shri Rahul Gandhi’s well-known policy of encouraging the youth, a number of youth leaders in the state have been fielded. This includes Ms Manju Sant, two-time Zila Panchayat  Member, who has gotten the ticket from Bara.  Another example is Sarvesh (Baba) Tiwari, a youth leader in the state, also a Zila Parishad  Member who will contest from Meja.  Another youth leader, Virendra Chaudhary, again a Zila Parishad Member, will fight the Assembly elections from Barhaj. Other young faces among the Party’s candidates are Amit Verma, elected Youth Congress Lok Sabha President from Katheri,   Laliteshpati Tripathi from Marihan, and Jai Singh from Siswa, among others.

The Congress candidate list also reflects a new and unusual mix of professionals with a certain standing in society, social activists, and other upstanding eminent citizens. A leading example is Dr Hembala Yadav, the best known gynaecologist in the Azamgarh area who is famous in the region for her medical services. Another example is of Vishwavijay Singh, a social and environmental activist who is fighting the election from Sahjanwa, and has led the Ami Nadi Bachao Andolan in the Gorakhpur area to clean up the most major river of the area and thereby preserve the ecology and environment as well as the livelihood of the Nishad community. Yet
another example is Rajeev Kiran, a management graduate from Ireland and an elected Block Pramukh who has gotten the Party ticket from Saidpur.

Of late, there has been a steady flow of influential leaders of the state from other parties into the Congress Party. Prominent among them are multiple-term MLAs, including Anar Singh Dhobi from Jalesar, Chhote Singh Yadav (four-time ex-MP and one-time ex-MLA) from Chhibramau, Yogendra Kunnu Babu from Saheswan, Shyam Lal Rawat from Sidhauli, and Dharmagya Mishra from Bilgram Mallawan. Sitaram Nishad, perhaps the tallest leader among the Nishads, has been given the  Party ticket from Gosaiganj.

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