With both Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party distancing themselves from the Congress for the Assembly polls in five States, leaders of the grand old party are preparing to go it alone in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

After BSP chief Mayawati’s recent snub, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced on Saturday that it would not go with the Congress in the poll-bound five States. The grand old party has gone back to its once traditional voters — Backwards and Dalits — and started holding programmes to woo them back to the party fold to revive its political chances.

These programmes are designed mainly to dent the SP and BSP vote banks as the two regional parties have now turned their back to the Congress, wrecking any attempt to stitch a grand alliance for the next parliamentary poll.

To woo the Backward voters, national co-ordinator of Congress Backward Cell, Anil Saini, announced in Lucknow on Saturday that all regional and district level committees of the cell would come into existence in the next fortnight and they would hold seminars to discuss the problems faced by members of the community and chalk out remedial strategy. Saini was addressing a state-level Backward Cell meeting at the UP Congress headquarters in Lucknow on Saturday.

Senior Backward leader of Congress, Ravi Bhushan Yadav, said that party president Rahul Gandhi had already assured to give tickets to Backward leaders as per their demographic ratio.

“After formation of Backward committees up to the block level, we will inform members of the community that only Congress is their real well-wisher and not Samajwadi Party or any other political group. This will definitely draw the OBC voters back to the party fold,” Yadav said.

Besides the SP, Congress has also started its drive to woo Dalit voters by organising several programmes from October 6 to 24 in Dalit dominated areas of  Uttar Pradesh. Under the banner of Samvidhan Bachao-Desh Bachao (Save Constitution-Save Nation), Congress leaders visited Dalit hamlets, had food with them, stayed in the villages to understand the problems and in the morning, marched up to Ambedkar statues and held meetings with community members.

UP Congress president Raj Babbar also asked workers and leaders to give special emphasis on all reserved seats of the state and organise ‘Samvidhan se Swabhiman’ meetings on October 10. Four days later, on October 14, party leaders will hold ‘Samvidhan Samman’ rallies in which all outstanding Dalit officers and other successful members of the community would be feted.

According to sources, Congress has designed its campaign in such a way that in case the BSP and the SP opt out of the alliance for the next parliamentary election, in those seats where SP is not contesting, maximum share of OBC votes are polled in its favour and not for BSP or BJP. Similarly, where BSP leaves the seat for SP, Congress will look for a lion’s share of Dalit vote.

Besides, Congress has also planned to capitalise on the anger of upper caste voters as the BJP had amended the SC and ST Act and is likely to introduce reservation in promotions for SC, ST government employees.