Congress Introduces Accountability Clause For State In-Charges, Leaders To Strengthen Organisation

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge introduced an accountability clause for state in-charges, emphasizing their responsibility for organisational strength and future election results in their respective states.

New Delhi: The accountability factor flagged by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge for the first time will be used prospectively on the state in-charge and will apply to the state leadership as well. “All of you will be accountable for the organisation and the future election results of the states under your charge”, Kharge told the general secretaries and state in-charges during a meeting on Feb 19, days after he named new in-charges in several states.

According to party insiders, the accountability clause that comes into play from now onwards will factor in the baggage that several states in charge are dealing with as they are trying to regroup the organisation in their respective states.

The organisational weakness has been identified as a major problem within the Congress in big states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra as well as in smaller states like Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha over the past years, the insiders further said.

“The accountability clause was used by the high command for the first time to convey a sense of seriousness in organisational matters. It is a good thing. It will apply to whatever they will do from now onwards to strengthen the party and prepare the organisation for future elections. This also means regular monitoring of the activities of the state leaders and regular feedback,” AICC in-charge of West Bengal Ghulam Ahmed Mir told ETV Bharat.

“The high command is aware of the ground situation across the state over the past years. The new clause will naturally apply to what happens now,” said Mir.

Kharge had disbanded the state units in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh last year to make for revamped teams. While up in charge Avinash Pande has been in office only for a year, Odisha had no state unit for the past eight months and got a new in-charge Ajay Kumar Lallu as well as state unit chief Bhakta Charan Das only last week.

Himachal Pradesh also got a new in-charge Rajani Patil last week who replaced Rajeev Shukla, along with Bihar’s new in-charge Krishna Allavaru who replaced veteran Mohan Prakash.

Allavaru has an uphill task of reviving the organisation in Bihar where assembly polls are due later this year. The same is the condition of new Haryana in-charge BK Hariprasad, new Tamil Nadu in-charge Girish Chodankar, New Delhi in-charge Qazi Nizamuddin who came in weeks before the assembly elections and new J&K in-charge Syed Naseer Hussain.

“Fixing the accountability of the in-charges is a good thing. We have been suggesting this for a long and finally, it has been highlighted by the party chief. This will help the teams do better,” Rajani Patil told ETV Bharat.

Party insiders said earlier the high command used to appoint fact-finding teams after poor results in a state and either the reports never came or if they came no follow-up action was taken on them.