With Congress leader Rahul Gandhi set to take over the party’s reins before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the party is on a mission to groom young leaders across the country. Pehchan, the new system of recognising and rewarding the hard work of Youth Congress workers, seeks to usher in a culture of grooming young leadership. The 32-year-old Karnataka State Youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad, in an interview with Hemanth Kumar, dwelt on his plans, priorities and programmes to draw the youth to the party and train them to take up challenges in nation building. Here are the excerpts.
It is four months since you took over as Karnataka Youth Congress president. What is your contribution for making it an ideal outfit for the youth?
We have ushered in a cultural change. The days of getting nominated as the president with influence or money power are over. I am the best example. I am a common man without any political background and I have been elected president on the basis of my hard work in the party, especially when I was part of NSUI, the student wing of Congress. I have organised leadership training programmes for Youth Congress members in 20 Lok Sabha constituencies. Already, over 1500 office-bearers of Youth Congress have received training and such camps would be held soon in the remaining eight Lok Sabha constituencies.
What sort of training is being given to them?
The training module includes thorough insight into Indian history, birth and growth of Congress party, international geo-political developments and basic awareness of the economic front. This is apart from imparting knowledge on the Constitution and principles of secularism. In the second phase of training, over 37,000 booth-level Youth Congress workers will be trained.
Rahul Gandhi has been talking about grooming young leadership. Is there any specific action on this front?
Rahul wants youth with clean background and without godfathers to come up. Future leaders should come from ordinary families without any political or financial barriers. For the first time in the history of any political party, Rahul has introduced a novel method of recognising and rewarding party workers. Pehchan (identity), the system of constant evaluation of every Youth Congress worker’s track record includes activities like enrolling new members, taking party in mass-contact programmes, taking up issues of public concern to redress their grievances etc has been implemented. The computerised system documents performance. It is being monitored and evaluated by Rahul Gandhi. Through Pehchan, Rahul can judge who has been working hard, who needs to be rewarded and groomed. This will eliminate the culture of sycophancy and help the youth to realise their aspirations if they are ready to strive hard for the party. We have enrolled 7 lakh members and will launch an enrolment drive next month. We have set a target of enrolling 20 lakh members.
The Congress has recently set up its ‘professionals’ wing. Do elaborate?
Young professionals constitute a huge segment of the youth in present society along with the students’ community. We already have a students’ wing, the NSUI. Now, we have started the professionals’ wing. Rajiv Gandhi was the one who ignited the IT revolution in the country. Most of the youth in the IT sector feel indebted to Rajiv for India’s strides in IT sector. We want to tap this huge groundswell of goodwill among the IT sector in Bangalore and other parts of the state. We are also reaching out to doctors, lawyers and other professionals through e-mail and other new-age communication media.
But despite high promises, the youth has always received a raw deal in getting tickets to contest assembly and Lok Sabha elections. How will you address this?
Yes, that it true. But that will change. Now, we have a basis to argue with top leaders armed with Pehchan, which will clearly reflect the track record of any aspirant. Of 224 assembly seat tickets, I will demand at least 40 for the Youth Congress in the next elections. I am confident Rahul will give us a fair representation.
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