Congress gears up for Delhi elections, focuses on cadre building

Congress aims to strengthen local leadership and grassroots presence in Delhi, ahead of the Assembly elections.

New Delhi: As Congress prepares for the upcoming Assembly elections in Delhi next year, interim president Devender Yadav is engaging with ticket aspirants to identify politically aware candidates. This strategy aims to ensure that the party can groom local leaders in various constituencies by providing them with opportunities to run for office.
Moreover, the party leadership in the union territory is focusing on building cadre by appointing party officials at the grass roots.
A Congress spokesperson in Delhi said, “There are 272 blocks in Delhi out of which around 60 block committees of Congress are defunct. They are waiting appointments. And the leadership has decided to first fill such posts so that the decision taken at the top passes down to the booth levels fluidly, and the Congress is able to perform better. Devender Yadav is himself heading the appointments. Congress is the only party in the country which has a Booth Management Department. This committee is only in Delhi and this is the department which will oversee the appointment of booth leaders. It had done booth management in six Lok Sabha elections and it will have a full-fledged role in the upcoming Assembly elections as well, and it will also start training programmes for the booth management workers which would help the Congress party in elections.”
According to political analysts, Congress is strong on around half a dozen seats and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) can easily pull off victory of majority of seats.
An analyst added, “Delhi has 70 Assembly seats and AAP needs to win 36 Assembly seats to form the government. They are sitting comfortably on more than 40 Assembly seats. So why would AAP want to stitch up an alliance?”
Moreover, there are rumours among the political circles of Congress that AAP has sent feelers to cobble up an alliance with the grand old party.
However, a top leader in Delhi, privy to the developments said, “As of now they have sent us no feelers. There has been no communication from their side with the Congress at any level. There has been no proposal. We had made it clear after the Lok Sabha elections that there will be no alliance with AAP after their state president had said that the Delhi-based party will not have any alliance for the Assembly elections. We believe that AAP is going through anti-incumbency which we can tap and re-establish our party in the capital.”
Another top leader of Delhi unit said, “We are currently working to make the manifesto, we have made 20 committees which will go to the grassroots and seek suggestions from the people. We will take their opinions and we will have experts as well in the committees. Subsequently, we will form the manifesto for Delhi elections. It will be people’s manifesto and not the imposed manifesto on people.”
According to the senior leaders of Congress, the local cadre of the party is unwilling to cobble up an alliance with AAP but the equation could change.
A senior Congress leader said, “A lot will depend on the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. There will be a change in the approach towards the elections after the results come out.”