JAL KHAMBATA
NEW DELHI: The Congress may give its party workers powers to elect candidates for the Lok Sabha and the assembly elections in the drastic changes proposed in the organisational structure to make the party better prepared for the elections.
The proposal discussed internally among the Congress general secretaries but not yet finalised aims at ending the age-old practice of selection of candidates by the central election committee on the recommendations of the state leaders.
Now every parliamentary constituency will have a Lok Sabha Congress Committee (LSCC) that will carry out election of the party candidates and that also two years in advance. Similarly, there will be a Vidhan Sabha Congress Committee (VSCC) in each assembly constituency with similar powers to allow the local party workers choose the candidates for the assembly elections.
The proposed new structure also seeks to replace the current practice of having the district and block level committees with the sector Congress committees (SCCs) and the polling booth Congress committees (PBCCs) as the last unit in the chain. There will be also the booth level agents (BLA) for 50 households. The booth-level committee members will participate actively in all social and religious functions, strive for communal harmony and social justice and monitor implementation of the government schemes and bring grievances to the notice of the president of the VLCC.
The LSCC and VSCC presidents will be elected for five years by all the registered Congress members in the respective Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies and the person coming second will be declared as vice-president while all those getting more than 20 per cent votes will become the core committee members.
The candidates will also be not selected but elected by these registered Congress members and that too two years before the scheduled elections.
Presidents of both LSCC and VSCC will be debarred from contesting the elections as it was felt that the poll management goes haywire when the district and block unit chiefs themselves enter the fray.
The proposed changes in the party constitution also envisage that the committees at all levels be it AICC, PCCs or the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and sector level committees will have 21-member working committees to be called “core committees” and unlike the current practice of the jumbo lists of the general secretaries there will be six general secretaries at the all-India level, appointed by the party president, and just four general secretaries in the PCCS and other committees.
At present the Congress president is elected by the elected AICC members, but the new structure envisages the president’s election either by all the registered Congress members in the country or by a new concept of the electoral college comprising presidents and two delegates each from LSCCs and VSCCs, PCC presidents and all executive members, all Zila Panchayat presidents, mayors, MLAs and MPs.
All those who get more than 20 per cent votes would automatically become the members of the Congress working committee. If the election is unanimous or no one gets more than 20 per cent vote, it will be then the party president’s role to nominate 21 members of the CWC. Other provisions include one-third positions to women and 20 per cent positions to SC/ST/OBC and minorities at all levels.
Sources revealed that these changes were proposed to make the organisation better prepared for elections and ensure the say of party workers in candidate selection at every level. They said the Congress constitution will have to be changed by calling an AICC session to incorporate all these changes.
