New Delhi/Lucknow, Jul 21 (IANS): Congress in Uttar Pradesh is on an active mode ever since Priyanka Gandhi took over as General Secretary In charge of the party in the state and have made strong interventions from taking up farmers issues in Sonbhadra to offering buses for migrants during the lockdown which ran into a controversy.

As Gandhi makes interventions at regular intervals, state President Ajay Kumar Lallu hits the streets almost daily.

And all this is happening even as former Union Minister Jitin Prasada is trying to mobilise his community -- the most influential Brahmins -- even though the state party unit, as a whole, is not focussing on this.

Priyanka Gandhi through her tweets, statements and strong intervention is trying to position the Congress as the main opposition in the state even though the party was decimated in the last Lok Sabha election, winning just one seat -- Rae Bareli, which is considered the Gandhi family pocket borough.

Nadeem Javed, Chairman of the minority department of the party, said, "After Priyanka Gandhi came to the fore raising the issue of Covid management and law and order, the party has managed to catch the eyeballs of the people.

Jitin Prasada, who is trying to cash on Brahmin resentment against the current government led by Yogi Adityanath, has floated Brahmin Chetna Parishad and have been meeting scores of people through social media and holding meetings of his community, said: "Since independence, Brahmins have been never felt so helpless and been subjected to harassment.

"Since the past few years, the Brahmins are being treated badly and have been insulted knowingly. This is a part of a conspiracy and it is time to raise the voice against such atrocities."

The Brahmins, though, constitute only about 11 per cent of the population but their influence could change the game for the Congress which has withered away since 1989, when the state saw its last Brahmin Chief Minister N.D. Tiwari.

The same strategy was adopted by Mayawati in 2007 when BSP came to power with majority and the credit was given to Brahmins. Later, the community switched over to the BJP.

Brahmins are opinion makers in the state.

Said a party insider, "There is a vacuum of Brahmin leadership in the party. We once had leaders like N.D. Tiwari, Kamlapati Tripathi and Uma Shankar Dikshit but the community has no leader in the Congress now."

Meanwhile Ajay Kumar Lallu the state President has been on streets agitating against the government. He said: "We are struggling for the people and Congress does not see it in terms of political benefit but the way the government has adopted the method of oppression to silence the dissenting voices."

The Congress is upsetting the equations in the state where the Samajwadi party is still considered as the main opposition party but in optics, Congress has taken away the sheen from it, political analysts feel, the problem for the Congress is its weak organisation and lack of proper social engineering in comparison to the SP and BSP.