First list may be out before announcement of election dates.
The Congress may be going through its worst phase but it is working to micro-and-macro manage the impending Lok Sabha elections. While the seat sharing negotiations are underway with the allies of I.N.D.I.A. bloc, the grand old party has started searching for candidates for all 543 Lok Sabha seats. Congress wants to declare the first list of candidates before the announcement of election dates.
Congress coordinators deployed on all LS seats have been given full power. They will play a key role in booth management, and finalising candidates from block and district levels. They can even recommend changes in the organisation at these levels. They have the power to change district Congress presidents. The party has given them a 24-page notebook which contains their powers. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is doing this experiment for the first time. All coordinators have been asked to stay in their constituencies till the counting day. They will form a team in the Assembly segments and will be sharing minute to minute updates.
There are eight Assembly seats in one Lok Sabha constituency of Rajasthan. The party wants a strong team in every seat which will be led by the coordinator who will be reporting to the AICC. If the party coordinators work honestly then the workers will feel recharged and re-energised. This will also boost the morale of the workers in states like UP and Gujarat, where the Congress has been marginalised.
The party’s strategy is to keep ready a list of candidates for the state where alliance does not work. For example, alliance talks are facing problems in UP. Congress may have to be in a friendly fight in some seats in this state. The same situation may be in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu.
Senior Congress leader and coordinator Dharmendra Rathore says that every election is a challenge. So the party takes it as a challenge and makes preparations for winning every single seat. Party chief Kharge’s strategy will yield good results, he adds. He says that strong candidates are being finalised with full transparency. The I.N.D.I Alliance and Congress will cross the majority mark, he claimed.
The earlier practice was that Congress used to deploy roaming observers which could not be effective. But this practice was wound up and this new system is in place. Five clusters of the screening committee have been set up. Five to six states will be given to one cluster. These committees are visiting states and holding meetings with coordinators for selection of candidates. State in-charges, state PCC chiefs, CLP leaders and other senior leaders are being consulted for preparing a panel of names. The party’s strategy is to release the list of candidates early on the seats where it is in direct contest with the BJP.