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Big ticket changes in UP Congress on cards ahead of assembly polls
The central leadership has held multiple meetings focusing on Uttar Pradesh with national general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal for ‘Sangathan Srijan’
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Ahead of the 2027 assembly polls, big ticket changes are on the cards in the Uttar Pradesh Congress amid a buzz about simmering discontent between the party’s state president Ajay Rai and state in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam.
Speaking to HT, Gautam said, “Brainstorming is going on by the party leadership right now. The Congress is not the same and this election will be the best for the party in the past 37 years.”
The Congress has been out of power in the state since 1989. Party sources say the central leadership has held multiple meetings focusing on Uttar Pradesh with national general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal for ‘Sangathan Srijan’. Apart from the process to select new district and city office bearers for all 75 districts, discussions on the state leadership were a significant part of the meetings.
“It is in the final stage and the results are likely by September 30 with some other major decisions,” Gautam said.
However, UP Congress president Ajay Rai said the process for a district-level rejig is going on and it will be finalised soon.
“The district-level office bearers are being decided for strengthening the party at the grassroots level. I am not aware of any state-level organisational changes,” Rai said.
The Congress brought in Gautam, a Dalit leader, replacing Avinash Pandey, a Brahmin face, in June 2026 as the AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh. Rai, an upper-caste Bhumihar leader, recently completed three years in office as the state unit president in Uttar Pradesh which goes to polls in about six months from now.
As a five-time former MLA, Rai has spent months relentlessly travelling districts to strengthen local cadres, organising public outreach programmes and is vehement against Prime Minister Narendra Modi against whom he contested in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll. This was something the previous state chiefs lacked in recent years.
Party sources said changes from the district to the state level will be made while factoring in caste equations and the leader’s capacity at the individual level.
With a Dalit leader as the incharge, the UP Congress has ensured the move caters to its once core vote bank at a time when Aradhna Mishra, the Congress Legislature Party leader, is a known Brahman face in the state. Inducting a Yadav or a Muslim at the state level may offend the Samajwadi Party, the Congress ally, which claims Muslim and Yadav voters are its core support base.
Given this scenario, the party could look for a face that suits the party’s strategy to demand an “equal share” of seats with the SP for the alliance the Congress needs at the state level.
In partnership with the SP, it got seven seats in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh. Going solo, it won only two seats in 2022.
The Congress has tried the strategy of changing state leadership in the recent past in two states. In Bihar, the Congress replaced an upper caste (Bhumihar) leader, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, as the state unit chief with Rajesh Kumar, a Dalit, in March 2025. This development took place seven months before the assembly elections and about three years after Singh’s appointment. In Jharkhand, the Congress made a change in August 2024, just three months before the assembly polls, bringing in Keshav Mahto Kamlesh, an OBC, to replace Rajesh Thakur, who was given the post in August 2021.
After the changes, the Congress won six out of 243 seats in Bihar in 2025 against 19 in the 2020 polls. In Jharkhand, the Congress won 16 out of 81 seats in 2024, equalling its 2019 performance. The Congress in Uttar Pradesh has two seats – Aradhna Mishra from Rampur Khas and Virendra Chaudhary from Pharenda.
“With any major change at the state level, Congress workers at the grassroots level will also need rejuvenation,” a senior party leader said.
