NEW DELHI: In the humiliating Uttar Pradesh defeat, the Congress has found a ray of hope for party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s mission to develop grassroot Dalit leadership. Though the Grand Old Party did not win a single reserved seat, it has seen a 51% increase in votes in the Assembly segments where it fielded Dalit leaders chosen through Gandhi’s Dalit leadership mission.In its seat sharing arrangement with Samajwadi Party , Congress got 27 reserved seats. Of the 27, Congress gave tickets to 18 Dalit leaders chosen through Gandhi’s Leadership Development Mission.This mission involved choosing grassroot leaders through a three-year long process under which candidates were chosen after seeing their performance on given tasks. Of these 18 seats, Congress had not contested on three seats in the 2012 Assembly elections. ET analysed the votes polled in 2012 and 2017 elections and found that the total number has increased from 4,37,448 in 2012 to 6,60,880 in 2017 – a 51% increase in the numbers. In 12 of the 15 constituencies, there was an increase and only three constituencies show a decline in number of votes.The party’s managers are seeing this response to fresh entrants as a positive for the mission. Shashank Shukla , in charge of Uttar Pradesh’s mission, said, “We are enthused by the response the grassroot Dalit leaders have received in their first political test. We hope the party would expand the mission in other states.”Three seats where the Congress had not fielded candidates in 2012 – Iglas, Nehtaur and Duddhi – the party has put up a good fight. In Nehtaur, the candidate has finished second, Duddhi third and Iglas fourth. All have polled votes between 20,000 and 53,000.A senior Congress leader told ET, “The leaders groomed under this mission have come a long way. In 2015 most of the leaders had refused to submit to their first political test in 2015 local body elections. Only 10% of the leaders had agreed to contest the elections.