NEW DELHI: With Rajasthan infighting posing fresh troubles for Congress in the election year, the much-talked-about organisational reform of the grand old party is back in the spotlight.
While the tussle between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot over unfulfilled power-sharing promises refuses to blow over, the announcement of a new Congress Working Committee (CWC) may be getting delayed because of the new provision of ‘50 per cent members Under 50’, according to sources.
At the 85th plenary session of the party in Raipur, the party Constitution has been amended to provide a reservation of 50 per cent for SC/ST/OBCs/minorities and a horizontal reservation of 50 per cent for youth and women in the reserved and unreserved categories.
While the Karnataka elections are keeping the party busy, the provision of inducting 50 per cent of members under 50 years into the CWC may be complicating the process more, said Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit.
Though he is not against the idea of inducting young people into the apex body, Dikshit said: “CWC is the highest decision-making body of the party and important names cannot be missed out. Also, Congress doesn’t have many positions to offer its experienced leaders. So the Working Committee is a great process of giving people some dignity and a place to work on a platform.”
The Working Committee gets dissolved after a new president is elected and it will be temporarily replaced by a steering committee, consisting mostly of the old CWC members.
At the plenary session, the Steering Committee authorised AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge to pick CWC members and decided against holding the election.
The thinking in the party could be that it is better to be blamed for delaying the process than facing the consequence of not accommodating experienced leaders above 50 years, says a senior Congress leader.
“Though the CWC has been expanded to accommodate 35 members, with 50 per cent quota for youth and 50 per cent in other categories, there’s no scope of general category members above 50 years getting nominated,” he said. The party will anyway have to keep those close to the Gandhis, he said.
“With these quotas, how can they pick new people other than the existing coterie? If they nominate the coterie back, it will become a laughing stock,” he said.
Another senior leader said the looming internal strife in poll-bound states like Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh could have been addressed adequately if the CWC was in place.