New Delhi:Post the Gujarat poll debacle, the Congress has taken up the western state, home to PM Modi and HM Amit Shah, as a special case to create a new set of ideologically committed workers at the block level.
“We have taken up Gujarat as a special case. We want to have at least two ideologically committed workers at the block level. We are identifying young people and training them in party ideology. We will hold four more programs across the four zones in Gujarat over the coming days. We want to create a group of ideologically committed workers and want a pyramid-shaped structure starting from the block level. This process will go on as it is a long-term project,” Congress Seva Dal chief organizer Lalji Desai told ETV Bharat.
The first training camp was held in Becharaji, a temple town in the Mehsana district on March 3. According to Desai, the new program has been launched ahead of the 2024 national polls as Congress wants to restrengthen the organization in Gujarat, a key state for the ruling BJP. The project was started months after the grand old party recorded its worst-ever performance in the 2022 assembly polls in which the party tally was reduced to just 17 out of 182 seats. In 2017, the Congress had won 77 seats.
The 2022 results had come as a shocker to the AICC which had said that the party still had a 27 percent vote share in Gujarat but needed to identify new leadership and rebuild the entire organization. Before that happens, the Seva Dal, a frontal organization of the Congress, has been tasked with the task of spreading the party ideology among the masses through committed workers.