With an apology for leaving and a promise to remain with the Congress till his death, Uttar Pradesh politician Imran Masood returned to the party on Saturday, a year and a half after he had left. With Mr. Masood’s re-entry, the Congress gains a prominent Muslim face that could help the party consolidate the minority votes in Uttar Pradesh, but his presence could pose a problem for the expected Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance in the State.
At a formal event held at the Congress headquarters to announce his return, Mr. Masood proclaimed, “I will stay in the Congress till I go to my grave.” He also apologised, particularly to party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, for leaving the party. “I haven’t met her, but whenever I will, I will apologise. I know it is difficult to forgive someone who abandoned you, the way I did,” he said.
Mr. Masood has had a checkered career, switching between the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. In his two previous stints with the Congress he was rewarded with plum positions. Ahead of the 2017 Assembly election, he was appointed as one of the three vice-presidents of the party in Uttar Pradesh, and ahead of the 2022 election he was made the All India Congress Committee secretary. He fought the Parliamentary election in 2014 and 2019 and the Assembly election in 2017 on a Congress ticket, but lost all of them.
