You can always dismiss them as stray voices, but when a shopkeeper in Lucknow says much the same thing the next day — that things are coming full circle and the Congress can return if only it tried — a pattern begins to emerge. The vote in UP this time was a vote for the politics of harmony and inclusion. And the BSP worked hard to get it but is yet to prove — both to its old base and new adherents — that it has truly become the party of the “sarvjan samaj”, the empowered 21st-century version of the old Congress party.

By changing the conflict-ridden paradigm of UP politics, the BSP — ironically — has also provided the objective conditions for a Congress revival. But that can only happen if the party works relentlessly on the ground, and realises three things: that the politics of old-style patronage is over; that you cannot transcend caste by simply pretending it does not exist; and that you cannot subsume the desire for empowerment under an overarching one-size-fits-all development rhetoric. Given that every UPite takes great pride in belonging to India’s ‘heartland’, a reinvigorated Congress may fare better in a national election even if the BSP consolidates itself in the state. But for that to happen, the party must shed its customary lethargy and start working at the grassroots right away. It has no time to lose.