NEW DELHI: The Distribution of party nominations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar indicates that the Congress Party is reluctant to shed its upper caste image, despite having faced successive electoral defeats in the two States.

While selecting its nominees, the Congress leadership seems to have ignored the recommendations of the K Karuna karan committee, which had analyzed the results of the 1993 UP “Assembly elections and attributed the party’s poor showing in the States to fits failure to coop the backwards. The committee had advocated giving larger representation to the weaker Sections of society.

The humiliating defeats in the two States which account for 139 Lok Sabha seats was the major reason for the Congress not getting majority in the last Lok Sabha elections. It had won only five out of 85 seats in UP and one of the 54 seats in Bihar in 1991.

The Yadav leaders who have been ‘given party tickets are mostly the ones ‘who defected from the Janata Dal to the Congress, under the leaderships of Bihar leader Ram Lakham Singh ‘Yadav. In UP, 13 OBC leaders have ‘been given tickets six of them Yadavs,

In Bihar, the emphasis is on winning over upper castes, especially Bhumihars, Rajputs and Kayast has who are perceived to have gone over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resulting in the Congress being related to third position. The party has fielded eight Brahmin candidates including Mr. Kaliprasad Pande, who is alleged to be involved in a number of criminal cases.

The Congress leadership’s guide line that win ability, and not “‘kith and kin” factor, was the norm for selecting candidates, appears to have been thrown to winds to oblige top leaders. The most brazen being the decision to nominate the relatives of hawala scam tainted leaders who had to quit the Government.

Besides, the two Ministers who had to quit the Government on the stock ‘scam Mr, B. Shankaran and and Mr, Rameshwar Thakur  are back in the limelight, as they have been given party tickets,

The expectation in the Congress and also in the media that Prime Minister P.Y. Narasimha Rao would go for “new faces” and purge the party structure has been belied with most of the sitting MPs being given re-nominations, Hardly 20 sitting Members (excluding those who have gone with Mr. Arjun Singh and’ Mr.G.K. Moopanar) have been denied tickets.

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 10, 1996