NEW DELHI: With the two-day Congress meeting scheduled in Gujarat on April 8 and 9, the grand old party is mulling the idea of the formation of the Election Management Department, a body announced during the three-day 2022 Udaipur Navchintan Shivir.
The Congress had organised the three-day Udaipur Chintan Shivir on May 14, 15 and 16 and passed the resolution for the formation of a new election management department besides two others.
The party after the Navchintan Shivir in a statement said that three new departments of the party will be created at the national level.
It was said to form the Public Insight Department, responsible for gathering public feedback on different issues and evaluating policies in a scientific manner, to serve as an input to the party leadership.
The Congress also had said that a National Training Institute would be formed, to train the party leaders and the workers on the policies, ideology and vision of the party, policies of the government, and other burning issues. The training institute can start at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies located in Kerala.
The most promising one was the AICC Election Management Department, to ensure preparedness well in advance for every election in an effective manner to achieve desired results.
The party had said that the General Secretary (Organization) (KC Venugopal, who has been holding the post for almost six years) is to assess the performance of the office bearers of All India Congress Committee, Pradesh Congress Committees and District Congress Committees, to help in promoting or removing office bearers based on their performance.
Now, ahead of the two-day Congress meeting, where the extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, which is the party’s highest decision-making body, is also scheduled, the sources indicated that the party is mulling forming the Election Management Department in the coming days and its announcement is likely to be made at the meeting.
The sources indicated that the party’s senior leadership has been discussing about the Election Management Department and is also looking to change the party’s Constitution if required.
A party source revealed that if this happens and the election management department is formed, then it will be the second most powerful body after the CWC.
The formation of the new election management department, which the source said that if formed then the party can start working on preparing for the elections much in advance as the recent assembly election of Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi has reflected on the party’s poor performance due to delay in kicking off the election campaign as well as dealing with the process of candidate selection.
The source also said that this department will be responsible for deciding on the election campaigns, and agendas, forging alliances in states and others for assembly polls in states as well as for general elections nationally.
The source also said that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge along with the party leadership is keen on strengthening the party and thus this department is required to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party across the country, as the grand old party had suffered several defeats after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and is only ruling in three states on its own.
The source further said that the Congress also wants to put some of its top old guards in the election management department to use their experience and their appeal with the voters, as they are still vote pullers for the grand old party.
If sources are to be believed, senior party leader Mukul Wasnik and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot might get the place in this new department. However, some of the leaders felt that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could be a part of this new department.
But some sources suggested that since Sonia Gandhi is already holding the position of Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson and Rahul Gandhi being the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, she might not take the new role in the election management department to avoid the debate of the Gandhi family holding maximum positions in key roles. The source also explained that the election management department is the need of the hour for the Congress to bring back its voters to the party, for they have gone away from it in the past few years.
However, it remains to be seen if the Congress, which had promised several other changes in the organisation after the Udaipur Navchintan Shivir in 2022—but all of which remained unfulfilled —will fulfil this promise in the coming days in Gujarat or not.