THE Congress has departed from its usual electoral mode in UP by naming Sheila Dikshit as its candidate for Chief Ministership. Dikshit has no doubt got the experience and the ability for the office. She was Chief Minister of Delhi three times running though rightly or wrongly tainted towards the end with enabled Arvind Kejriwal to romp in with a bang. She is not a dark horse in UP as she had won the Kanauj seat in the 1984 Lok Sabha poll. She belongs to a respected family in the state and her Brahmin lineage was once a political strong point there. The question is whether she will be able to live down the stink over her in the battle of Delhi and whether her party has any hope of success in a state where it had been virtually wiped out for years. Putting emphasis on her high-born social status seems a desperate attempt to pull in votes. In Delhi, on the contrary, she was not only projected as but also proved herself to be a cosmopolitan, casteless personality best suited to the cosmopolitan metropolis. A contradiction of her Delhi image in UP which has recently seen the emergence of the Dalit factor may not do any good.
What is more to the point is that the Congress has not only crashed in UP but also at a national level. Sheila Dikshit backed by the Sonia-Rahul combination, both commanding great popularity in the state, is not likely to rescue the grand old party from the morass. The only result may be an attrition of the vote bank of the BJP which, despite efforts to remove the communal stain under the baton of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, is still on a very sticky wicket in UP. The Congress has also targeted it by putting up Imran Masood and Raj Babbar under its flag.
