Rahul Gandhi, who is heading the Congress Election Coordination Committee, has already started ‘secret missions’ to select Lok Sabha candidates for the next General Election slated for 2014, or even before. Rahul has handpicked a 50-member team to individually assess the performance of party MPs in the constituencies allotted to him or her. Young MLAs and MLCs across the country have been inducted into the team and are designated as ‘facilitators’. Their names are top secret, known only to the PCC chiefs of the state assigned to each.
Currently, the facilitators are on assignment in the Lok Sabha constituents mostly represented by heavyweights. Be it the finance minister, the home minister or a member of the core committee, all sitting Congress MPs will be vetted by Rahul Gandhi before being given a ticket. For instance, Rudraraju Padma Raju, has been asked to assess the performance of finance minister P Chidambaram in Sivaganga. Padma Raju said, “I am not that much big to asses the performance of a top leader like Chidambaram. But, Rahul Gandhi is particular that only clean and committed leaders must be fielded by the party in 2014.”
For this massive, secret exercise, Rahul personally trained the members of the team at AICC War Room at 15, Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Road in Delhi on October 10 during a one day workshop; he asked his ‘spies’ to be unbiased while judging the performance of the party’s sitting MPs across the country. The covert operation, however, is having teething troubles. Some of the facilitators, for example from Andhra Pradesh, do not know even the contours of the constituencies allotted to them. They would have to do diligent homework before getting down to work. The 50-member team will submit its performance report on each and every Congress MP along with a probables list to the AICC by the second week of coming December.
- Sunday Standard