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The Congress appears to be learning from the Bharatiya Janata Party. First it chose Kamal Nath, accused of being involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, as its in-charge of Punjab – only to reverse the decision after public outcry. Now it has gone with some on even more relevant to the current communal climate in Uttar Pradesh: Imran Masood has been declared one of four Vice Presidents of the Congress's state unit, ahead of elections next year.

Imran Masood, Raja Ram Pal & Rajesh Mishra have been appointed Vice-Presidents of UP PCC — INC India (@INCIndia) July 12, 2016

Masood will report to Raj Babbar, who was on Tuesday named the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, although he declined to comment on the question of whether the party will project a chief ministerial face in the run-up to the elections.

The decision to choose Masood as one of its top leaders in UP is in-line with the BJP and Samajwadi Party's approach over the last few years of picking politicians with questionable records in an effort to ensure any polarisation will be to the party's benefit.



Masood, a Lok Sabha candidate for the Congress, was arrested in 2014 after threatening to "chop [Narendra] Modi into pieces" if he dared to do a Gujarat – a reference to the Godhra riots of 2002 in which the then-Gujarat chief minister presided over brutal violence and the death of hundreds mostly Muslim – in Uttar Pradesh.

At the time, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had publicly condemned the remarks saying "the words he used against one of the Opposition leaders is not our ideology." Masood himself also told the Indian Express that it was a wrong choice of words, but said he would not apologies until Modi apologises for Gujarat.

Of course that isn't the only taint on his record. In his Lok Sabha candidacy affidavit, Masood at the time also revealed that there were five other cases pending against him, including allegedly cheating, forgery, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.

In November last year, there was a brief kerfuffle after Masood was spotted again with Gandhi and reports emerged in May that partymen from across Western Uttar Pradesh had conveyed to poll strategist Prashant Kishor their desire for him to be the Congress's face in the Muslim-majority region. It appears those pleas did not fall on deaf ears.