New Delhi: The much-anticipated process of change began in the grand old party on Wednesday with Mallikarjun Kharge taking charge as Congress president from Sonia Gandhi.
According to sources, the new Congress president, who was elected through a transparent process, is likely to go in for elections to the Congress Working Committee, which is the most important body of the party.
The CWC elections have not taken place in the party for over two decades and holding the same would send a positive signal among the rank and file while also rejuvenating the organization, said the sources.
To pave the way for a revamped CWC, all the existing body members on Wednesday submitted their resignation to Kharge, who is expected to announce a steering panel composed of senior leaders to guide the party till a plenary session is held. According to sources, Kharge may retain some of the CWC members in the steering committee while bringing in new people.
As per the party norms, the plenary session will ratify the election of the new president and decide on the CWC elections. According to sources, around half of the CWC members might be elected while the Congress president has the right to nominate half the members.
The G23, a group of senior dissenters, had been demanding internal elections for all posts, including the Congress chief, and for the CWC. Two of them, former Haryana Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan attended the event to mark Kharge’s taking charge.
Alongside a revamped CWC, the new Congress president is also expected to revamp the AICC general secretaries in charge of various states.
On Wednesday, all the general secretaries submitted their resignations to Kharge allowing him to choose his new team. The changes would be announced soon, said the sources.
While a revamp of the central teams was certain, there was no clarity if a similar change would take place in the state teams through elections. Before the presidential polls, the state unit had passed a resolution authorizing the new party chief to appoint state unit heads, if he wished.
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Party insiders said the plenary session may take a call on holding elections in the state units. Before the presidential elections, the state units were recast but most of the office bearers were appointed through consensus rather than election.
As the elections in state units are a mammoth exercise, the issue would be debated in the plenary session, said the insiders.
The sources further said that before elections can take place in the state units, political affairs committees would be formed in states, to make the local teams more responsive to organizational issues and the political challenges before the Congress.
On his part, Kharge reiterated his commitment to implementing the Udaipur Declaration which had stipulated that half of all office bearers should be below 50 years of age to accommodate the younger workers and woo the young voters.
“Implementing the Udaipur Declaration is the responsibility of all of us,” Kharge, who sought cooperation from the workers, said.
Further, while the organizational structure will go through a change, the new president is expected to set up special departments to manage polls and have insight into public issues.
According to insiders, Kharge, who comes from a Dalit background, is also in the process of revamping the SC, ST, and OBC departments of the AICC so that the party may reach out to the communities in a mission mode.
The idea, they said, is to identify and promote leaders from these communities to strengthen the organization and woo the voters. According to party insiders, as the new Congress chief was making plans to strengthen the organization, he faced several challenges.
The problem of a weak organization is not new and has been bothering the party for decades. Yet no sustained efforts were made to address the problem, the sources said. A weak organization had been identified as one of the key reasons behind several election losses in states by former president Sonia Gandhi in the past.
Notably, the special task force set up by Sonia soon after the Udaipur Chintan Shivir held in May to push implementation of the Udaipur Declaration has not met over the past weeks as the entire focus shifted to the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Also, when the party had announced plans to implement the norm of having half of all office bearers under 50 years of age in May, there was a lot of reservation over the move from the senior leaders.
These seniors, who had been working hard for the party in states for decades, were not happy over being removed suddenly. To deal with the issue, the AICC had asked the state units to hold special workshops in various state capitals to explain the spirit behind the Udaipur Declaration to the seniors.
Against this backdrop, it would not be easy for Kharge to push changes in the organization overnight, the insiders added.
