New Delhi: The Congress Central Election Authority, tasked with conducting the party’s internal polls, on Wednesday reviewed preparations for the democratic exercise that will culminate with the election of the new party president in August.
Following the completion of the digital membership drive, held by the party for the first time, on April 15, the Central Election Authority, headed by veteran Madhusudan Mistry, deliberated on the smooth conduct of the internal polls under which state teams will be elected over the coming weeks. “The internal polls in the state unit have to be completed over the coming weeks. The process of appointing the returning officers at the block and district level has started and will be finalised soon,” a senior AICC functionary said on condition of anonymity.
According to this leader, the CEA allotted states to the various members of the body and gave them the charge to resolve any technical issues that may arise while electing new teams of office bearers at the block and district levels. “Usually, these teams are formed on the basis of consensus but in cases where local leaders want polls to be held, the exercise must be held as per the rules,” a source said.
“The process is now on and we hope to complete it by August,” the source said, adding that most of the new office bearers in states should be in place by mid-May when the Congress will hold a Chintan Shivir in Rajasthan to discuss a future roadmap. Rahul Gandhi, who was behind the digital membership drive, wants the 2.6 crore new members to have a say in the election or nomination of the new office bearers in the states and even in the process of identifying the potential nominees for the assembly elections.
“Rahulji believes the members can be empowered this way by involving them in the decision-making process,” said a senior AICC functionary. Congress data analytics department chairman Praveen Chakravarty, who trained the 5 lakh enrollers, said the digital membership drive had brought about a change in the way the grand old party functioned. One of the enrollers, Charan Singh Sapra said the exercise helped them identify the strong and weak areas booth wise and the data gathered will help the managers shape better strategies.
The internal elections are significant for the Congress president as a group of senior leaders, who came to be known as G23, had written a letter to her in 2020 demanding polls for all party posts and a visible and full-time party president. The G23 letter had come in the wake of the party's poor show in the 2019 national elections and had miffed the Sonia Gandhi loyalists. The party had drawn up a schedule for the internal polls earlier but could not conduct the elections over the past two years due to the pandemic.
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