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After a gap of about 22 years, the Congress is getting ready to hold organisational elections at all levels. To initiate the process, Chairman of the Central Election Authority, Mullappally Ramachandran, convened a meeting of all General Secretaries here on Monday, a day after the Congress faced historic defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Many State-level leaders were pointing fingers at the General Secretaries at the Centre for the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections. There were complaints that the General Secretaries worked in a “superficial” manner and grievances at the ground went unheard.
Ramachandran apparently told the General Secretaries to ensure that the organisational elections were held in a foolproof and time bound manner in all States.
“We are concentrating on building the party at the booth level. We need a strong organisation at the local level. This election is to re-build the party at every level, and is a constitutionally mandated democratic process in the party,” Ramachandran said.
On 28 October, Ramachandran has convened another meeting of the General Secretaries and the Pradesh Congress Committee presidents. “We are trying to complete the membership campaign by 31 December. The organisational elections will be held before 31 July. The meeting is to seek the cooperation of all State leaders,” Ramachandran said. Though the Congress website is offering online memberships, they are not valid for the organisational elections.
Youth Congress model AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has been advocating “democratic process” in the Congress. He has been showcasing the elections in the Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India and had wanted that to be implemented in the Congress too. Ramachandran had met leaders of the Youth Congress and Rahul Gandhi’s advisors on the possibility of replicating the Youth Congress model within the Congress.
The last time the Congress had elections to the Congress Working Committee was at the 79th AICC session held in Tirupati in 1992, when Narasimha Rao was the party president.
Other parties have been attacking the Congress for the lack of internal democracy. Rahul Gandhi has been advocating that without organisational elections, the party will not be able to revive its fortunes. He has also been favouring the “Kerala model” where organisational elections are held regularly at least till the district level.
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