Congress woos city’s North Indian vote bank, particularly its OBCs

The Mumbai Congress is attempting to win back the support of North Indians, who have gradually shifted their allegiance to the BJP in recent years. The party held an outreach programme called the 'Uttar Bhartiya Samajik Sanskritik Sammelan', where four resolutions were passed aimed at addressing the concerns of the community. These include demanding reservation benefits for North Indian OBCs, regularising slums with ground-plus-one structures, implementing the Street Vendors Act, and preventing harassment of auto rickshaw drivers. The Congress hopes that these initiatives will help rebuild its base among North Indians and attract OBCs to the party.

Will fight for two free flats for ground-plus-one slums, stop ‘harassment’ of rickshawallahs

Mumbai, India - Nov 21, 2023 : Shri Ajay Rai, President Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee arrived at Uttar Paschim Jilha Congress Committee organised Uttar Bhartiya Rally at Goregaon, in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Nov 21, 2023. (Photo by Vijay Bate/HT Photo)

MUMBAI: For decades, North Indians—the second largest linguistic group in the city after native Marathi speakers—formed a strong support base for the Congress. In the past decade, however, this bloc has been gradually won over by the BJP, something the Congress is attempting to rectify ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. One step towards this was an outreach programme on Tuesday called the ‘Uttar Bhartiya Samajik Sanskritik Sammelan’ in the presence of the Congress’ UP president Ajay Rai.

Once considered a strong political unit of the party, the Mumbai Congress is now in terrible shape, with its political presence in sharp decline over the past decade. It failed to win even one of the six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai for two consecutive parliamentary elections, won only four out of 36 assembly seats, and 31 out of 227 seats in the last civic polls.

Following the deaths of Murli Deora and Gurudas Kamat, no strong local leader has emerged from the party. The defections of Kripashankar Singh, Rajhans Singh and several other North Indian leaders have made the situation even worse. The party has had a limited following among the Marathi population, which largely supports the Shiv Sena; its strong support base has been North Indians, minorities, Dalits and some other communities.

With the BJP having made inroads into the city’s North Indian vote bank since 2014, the Congress is now trying to rebuild its base in the community, and specifically trying to win over the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among North Indians.

On Tuesday, party leaders discussed issues of the community in the ‘Uttar Bhartiya Samajik Sanskritik Sammelan’ at Goregaon. Four resolutions were passed at the meet: reservation benefits for North Indian OBCs, regularising slums having ground-plus-one structures, implementing the Street Vendors Act, 2014, and preventing “harassment” of auto rickshaw drivers “in the name of traffic violations”. All these issues are related to the majority of North Indians in Mumbai.

“In Maharashtra, OBCs from North India are not recognised and are also not getting any reservation benefits because of the difference in surnames,” said former MP Sanjay Nirupam. “Our demand is for a caste-based survey and to consider profession as a criterion for giving reservation. Despite living in the city for years, North Indian OBCs have been deprived of their rightful reservation benefits.” Nirupam said the party would also demand that owners of slums with an upper storey be given two free flats by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority in redevelopment schemes.

Congress insiders said that the counter to the BJP’s Hindutva plank was to attract the OBC community towards the party. “In the last ten years, the North Indian community moved towards the BJP in the name of Hindutva. The OBC community needs to be brought back on our side because in reality they don’t like the BJP,” said a Congress leader.

The party is hoping that its initiative will lure the community to its side and is considering organising more such events in the coming days. “We are going to distribute 5,000 copies of the resolution to create awareness among North Indians,” said Nirupam, who headed the Mumbai Congress between 2015 and 2019.

At the function, the party also felicitated prominent members of the community, among them athlete Aishwarya Mishra who won a silver medal in the recent Asian Games. Aishwarya stays in Dahisar with her father Kailash Mishra, who is a vegetable vendor.