Alliance or revival? Why Congress faces a deep dilemma in Uttar Pradesh

With the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections just four months away, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) recently conducted a major reshuffle of the state party unit, appointing Aradhana Misra as the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) chief and Saharanpur MP Imran Masood as its working president. One of the Congress's two MLAs in the state, Misra, daughter of Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, is a three-term legislator from Rampur Khas. The Congress leadership’s move has come ahead of its seat-sharing negotiations with its INDIA bloc ally Samajwadi Party (SP), the principal Opposition in UP, for the Assembly elections. This also signals another attempt to revive its Brahmin-Muslim–Scheduled Caste (SC) coalition, which had traditionally been the party's defining base over the decades when it dominated state politics.