New Delhi: The Congress is in the process of setting up an election management department which will prepare advance plans for the states and alert the respective central and state teams on the gaps to be covered.
The idea has come after the realization that the grand old party needs to win as many states across the country to be able to effectively take on the main rival BJP.
At present, the Congress is in power in two southern states Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, while it is part of the ruling alliance in Tamil Nadu. The party is the main opposition in Kerala but is the weakest in Andhra Pradesh.
In the north, west and north-eastern regions the party has only one state Himachal Pradesh under it and shares power with the JMM in Jharkhand.
The Congress-led INDIA bloc was on a high after the group was able to stop the BJP in the tracks by limiting it to just 240 of the 543 seats, 32 short of a simple majority, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but since then the grand old party has suffered a series of reverses in UT Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi.
“An election management department is a strong possibility over the coming days,” a Congress Working Committee member said on condition of anonymity.
The first challenge is in Bihar where polls are due later this year followed by Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in 2026 and Gujarat and up in 2027.
“We need to win more states to be strong across the country,” AICC secretary in charge of Telangana Rohit Chaudhary told ETV Bharat.
Chaudhary also contested the recent assembly elections in Delhi in which the Congress failed to win even a single seat for the third consecutive term.
“The only way forward for us in Delhi is to work even harder,” said Chaudhary.
As the election management department takes shape, discussions around its structure and role are being held within the grand old party.
“Maybe, the research department will be renamed as poll management department,” AICC secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Dheeraj Gurjar told ETV Bharat.
According to party insiders, the role of the new department is under discussion as the AICC in charge along with the state heads had been supervising the elections in the past. Given this, where will the new department fit needs to be worked out, they said.
“In my view, the new department will do a 360-degree planning of a state going to elections and sound the respective central and state teams on the gaps to be filled up. If we talk of poll management, right from the issue of organization, to alliances, to selection of candidates, to drafting the manifesto and designing the campaign, everything comes under it. If a specialist team does all this in advance and alerts the respective in-charges, the outcomes could be different,” an AICC functionary said.
There is speculation that star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who is an AICC general secretary without any portfolio might head the new election management department.
“This is the prerogative of our party president. I can’t say anything on this,” said Gurjar.
