New Delhi: Anil “Jaihind” (Yadav), who has replaced Captain Ajay Singh Yadav as chairman of the Congress party’s OBC department, joined the party barely two months ago. But his association with the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, began in December 2023.
“That’s when I received a call from Rahul Gandhi’s office. A few days later, I, along with a few other social activists, met him. The meeting which was supposed to last 30 minutes went on for over an hour. I will always carry the regret of having met him (Rahul) so late in my life,” Jaihind told ThePrint Friday.
His rapid elevation to the post of Congress OBC department chief has caught many in the party by surprise. Under Rahul’s leadership, the party has made the politics of social justice its rallying cry. It has pledged that, upon coming to power, it will conduct a nationwide caste census and remove the 50 percent cap on reservations for OBCs, SCs, and STs—a stance reaffirmed in the political resolution adopted by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Wednesday during its session in Ahmedabad.
Chairman of the party’s OBC department will play a crucial role in the days and months to come, as Rahul intensifies his push for social justice. Jaihind’s appointment to the post assumes particular significance in this context.
In April 2024, days ahead of the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections, Jaihind was at a meeting on social justice organised at Delhi’s Jawahar Bhavan. Rahul was among the speakers at the event. “After the event, I told him (Rahul), there was a need to hold such meetings across India, especially in state capitals instead of limiting such interactions to Delhi. Rahul suggested that I organise one in Lucknow,” Jaihind said.
On 10 May, 2024, Rahul addressed the “Rashtriya Samvidhan Sammelan” in Lucknow, the first of many such events focused on “safeguarding the Constitution” that the party would go on to organise since. Tapping into his network as a social activist, Jaihind played a key role in organising them.
“I suggested to Rahul ji that we need to reach out to the hundreds of activists working in the field of social justice and communal harmony in the states. After our first conclave in Lucknow, word spread like wildfire. That is also evident from the Lok Sabha results of the last four phases in Uttar Pradesh,” Jaihind claimed.
Yadav derives his adopted surname, Jaihind, from his father’s association with Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj. An MBBS by qualification, Jaihind said he came into contact with B.P. Mandal—who chaired the Backward Classes Commission that recommended 27 percent reservation in public sector employment and education for Other Backward Classes (OBCs)—while working as a doctor in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital.
“In a way, my ideological grooming was under him (Mandal),” Jaihind said.
Jaihind contested the 1993 assembly elections from Delhi’s Nangloi Jaat constituency as a Janata Dal candidate, finishing third with 10 percent votes in the seat. “I had joined the Congress in the early 1980s. I was closely associated with D.P. Ray, who was leading Rajiv Gandhi’s cadre building exercise as general secretary of the Youth Congress,” Jaihind said.
Jaihind claimed that he quit the party after being “disillusioned” with P.V. Narasimha Rao’s stance on matters of caste and religion, and joined the Janata Dal on an invitation from Sharad Yadav. He also briefly served as national general secretary of the Loktantrik Janata Dal, that Yadav, who died in 2023, had floated.
Meanwhile, Captain Ajay Singh Yadav accused the Congress leadership of “humiliating” him by removing him from his post, pointing out that he had been replaced with someone who had joined the party just “just three months ago”.
“I have no hard feelings for being removed as Chairman AICC OBC Department but the general secretary organisation should have asked me to step down gracefully as I remained with the Congress for the last 40 years with unflinching loyalty…to humiliate someone is not in good taste,” he wrote on X.
On October 17, 2024, after the party’s loss in Haryana, Ajay Singh Yadav had announced that he was quitting the party and also resigning as chairman of the OBC cell. However, two days later, he took a U-turn, saying he would remain a Congressman “till my last breath”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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