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COME elections in north India, particularly the Hindi heartland, the Congress old bugbears, which emerged with its loss of power in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the late 1980s, return to haunt the blueprint it ambitiously seeks to craft. The dilemmas emanate from performing the high-wire act of pandering to the upper castes (the Congress wistfully hopes that the Brahmins will return to its embrace) without alienating the Dalits. It is an apparent attempt to revive the Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim axis, which buttressed its dominance for decades in these parts. UP and Uttarakhand will vote in 2027 along with Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. In UP, Uttarakhand and HP, upper castes are numerically significant and influential locally.