Carnival of change

 

 

The times they are a-changin' for the Indian National Congress. Come March the grand old party will witness a huge carnival that, if all goes well, will alter the organisation for good. During this event, the Congress and its youth wing will select new members from the booth level all the way up to the Assembly, Parliamentary and state levels. Significantly, family legacy and other undemocratic considerations will have no bearing on who gets in and who doesn't .

Conceived by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, the intra-party ‘selection’ process will be supervised by a specially set up “opportunity in challenges” committee headed by party veteran and Union law minister Veerappa Moily. This team, which has Rahul as a member, is charged with the responsibility of building a committed party cadre that will be given preference when tickets are distributed for elections to local bodies, assemblies and the Lok Sabha.

The brief is clear: keep out elements with dubious credentials and prop up contenders from economically disadvantaged sections and backward castes. Shamim, who has worked for the party for 24 years without holding any official position, is jubilant at the prospect of grassroot workers taking the reins of the organisation. “People who've worked selflessly will now get to join the mainstream and prove themselves,” he says.

Significantly, the membership fees for people from backward sections have been fixed at one-third of that of people from other sections of society. What’s more, at the panchayat level, it has been made mandatory to choose two delegates from Scheduled Castes and one from the Other Backward Castes.

The focus of the “opportunity in challenges” team is understandably on Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two states that account for around a quarter of the nation’s population and parliamentary seats. The organisation of the party is in disarray in these two states and therefore need immediate attention. The internal elections in these states will need at least 50 observers while Rahul has planned as many as 120 meetings in these places to mobilize the party rank and file.

But the question is: why is Rahul Gandhi so eager to bolster the second rung of the party’s leadership? Well, if you believe Congress watchers, his urge stems from recent Congress history. When Sonia Gandhi had decided to contest the election to the post of Congress president for the first time, she met with opposition from Jitendra Prasada. As expected, Sonia trounced the satrap from Shahjahanpur. What she did next left an impression on Rahul. Sonia called her rival and thanked him for the putting up a contest. “If you hadn’t contested, I would have been elected unopposed and detractors would have insisted that there is no intra-party democracy in the Congress. Your step has shut them up,” she told Prasada. Rahul is determined to carry that spirit forward. When he took over as Congress general secretary, he was apparently unhappy with the way the party organisation was being run. He wanted an overhaul. That is why Sonia’s right hand man Oscar Fernandes was pulled out of the Union Cabinet and asked to oversee the restructuring of the party. Sources say that Rahul wants to restructure the Congress in such a manner that there is no place for ad-hocism in the party. Talking to TSI, Mukti Nath Upadhyay, spokesperson of the Bihar State Congress Committee, says: “Rahul wants structural reforms in the organisation and the Youth Congress. He does not want office-bearers to be pulled out of thin air and foisted on party workers. Rahul has emerged as a movement by himself because of his simplicity, straight forwardness and commitment to socio-political reforms.”

The intra-party elections are being held under the keen eyes of erstwhile Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh. Clear norms are being enforced even at the booth level. At the booth level, one member each from the Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been made mandatory. All the members that are in the running have an identity card that has every single detail about the person right down to his serial number on the voting list of his polling booth. A copy of each of these cards has been kept at 24 Akbar Road, the Congress party headquarters. Rahul’s continuing interaction with school and college students across the country is part of his strategy to draw the youth of the nation into the political mainstream. He believes that the youth are fed up of those who indulge in divisive politics, and that they want to play a part in good governance.

The hustle-bustle is more apparent in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Rahul perceives these states as a challenge. The importance of symbolism is not lost on Rahul and that is why he started his Bihar campaign from Bhitarahwa Gandhi Ashram in West Champaran district where Mahatma Gandhi and his spouse had spent six months in 1917 during their struggle against indigo plantation policy of the British. Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, who is in charge of Bihar, has said the result of the membership drive in the state that concluded on February 12 is startling. He insists that in every Assembly segment in the state, as many as 5,000 to 6,000 members have enrolled on an average. The state of Bihar has 240-odd Assembly seats.

On the other hand, Digvijay Singh, who is in charge of Uttar Pradesh, has claimed that the mass base of the party will be so strong by the next Assembly polls that it will uproot any party that does communal or casteist politics. Also, the way the youth—both male and female—are joining the rank and file of the Youth Congress, the party will be a force to reckon with in the next few years and will be in a position to change the course of the country’s politics. BJP is jittery but refuses to give itself away. It is keeping a close watch on Rahul Gandhi’s dramatic moves. The upcoming BJP convention in Indore will discuss the line of action vis-à-vis the Congress. BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad is dismissive about the Congress, saying that it has no base in Bihar and is handicapped in the south too. However, Mukti Nath Upadhyay laughs off the cynicism claiming that the next Assembly polls in Bihar will put an end to any ambiguity about the Congress’ strength in the state.