NEW DELHI: The Congress will bet big on the party’s Young Turks in a bid to revive its dwindling political fortunes in the national capital ahead of the Assembly elections. Indicating as much on Tuesday, Subhash Chopra, the Congress’ newly-elected Delhi chief, said the grand old party would give priority to its young and unheralded crop when it comes to handing out tickets to contest the Assembly polls.
However, Chopra, who held the post previously, clarified that he had no immediate plan to ring in organizational changes to the party’s local unit. He said the party would scale up its effort to infuse a fresh burst of energy into its rank and file in a bid to perk up its poll prospects.
“We would give more priority to young faces when it comes to distributing tickets for the Assembly elections. Our list of candidates would be a mix of youth and experience. We will put together a team of 30-35 young members, who will be tasked with leading our social media outreach and will also be assigned roles in our research department,” Chop said.
The post of the party’s Delhi chief fell vacant after the demise of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit.
With the Assembly elections barely months away, the new chief faces a tough task to set the house in order in time for the polls.
“There is no immediate plan to bring any organizational change to our Delhi unit. Just wait and watch what happens. We’ll do something that you can’t imagine,” Chopra said during an interaction with media persons at the Congress’ Delhi office.
He said he will expose the BJP-led central government as well as the Arvind Kejriwal regime in the national capital by highlighting their failures on multiple fronts.
Also present at the media interaction were senior leaders Kirti Azad, JP Agarwal, Arvinder Singh Lovely, Sandip Dikshit and Rajesh Lilothia, among others.
Azad said, “We earned the respect of the Poorvanchalis by working for them. Kejriwal says people from Bihar come to the city on a train ticket of R500 and go back. (Delhi BJP chief) Manoj Tiwari blamed outsiders for 80 per cent crimes in Delhi. Both have cheated the Poorvanchalis.”
The Congress lost its 15-year hold of the national capital after being trounced by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the 2013 elections. In the 2015 polls, the grand old party fared even worse as it failed to open its account.
Race against time for city Congress supremo
The post of the party’s Delhi chief fell vacant after the demise of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit. The new chief faces a tough task to set the house in order in time for the Assembly polls. Subhash Chopra said he will highlight the failures of the Centre and AAP regime soon.