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Rahul Gandhi to meet party leaders tomorrow to discuss future

With campaigning for Delhi polls coming to an end, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will brainstorm with senior party leaders here on Friday on ways to make the party fighting fit. He will meet party general secretaries and secretaries at a meeting of the Congress Central Election Authority.

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With campaigning for Delhi polls coming to an end, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will brainstorm with senior party leaders here on Friday on ways to make the party fighting fit. He will meet party general secretaries and secretaries at a meeting of the Congress Central Election Authority.

The Committee headed by Mullapalli Ramchandran has been given the responsibility of organisationals polls. The process for organisational elections has already begun and it will culminate with the election of a new party President next year. It was extended for two more months from December 28 to February 28 as due to elections and other reasons many state units were finding it difficult to cope with the earlier deadline.

Organisational weakness has been cited one of the major reasons for the debacle of Congress starting from 2010 Assembly elections in Bihar and followed by Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh in 2012.

It was one of the factors responsible for the abysmal show by the party in last year's Lok Sabha polls, apart from price rise and perception of corruption. Congress tally plummeted to a mere 44 from 206 the previous time.

Some of the ideas of Rahul Gandhi like introducing elections at all levels in election of party office bearers have not found much favour with the old guard.

The decision to revise the tenure of party bearers from three years to five years ratified at the AICC plenary at Burari in 2010, is also likely to be revised. These issues have come up in earlier meetings of the Election Authority.

In his first formal interaction with top party leaders in October last year after the defeat of Congress in Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana, Gandhi had said the organisational elections should be utilised to 'reinvigorate and rejuvenate' the party following the debacle in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. 

The party also fared miserably in assembly polls in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir. Gandhi is keen that the organisational elections are 'free, fair and transparent' and has been pressing for long for a larger say for grass root workers in the election of party office bearers.

Gandhi, who was busy in Delhi election campaign will be meeting the party leaders tomorrow at a time, when Congress does not have much hope left in the state, which it had lost badly in 2013 Assembly polls after ruling it for 15 consecutive years.

Struggling to recover from its worst electoral debacle in Lok Sabha, Congress leadership has outlined a blueprint to revamp the party and redraft its socio-economic policies and holding a series of consultative meets with party leaders and workers at the grass root to elicit views and coalesce a consensus on three core issues. The core issues being flagged in the consultations are Congress' ideology, organisational reforms required to progressively devolve power and increased accoutability of leaders at all levels and the way forward for the party with a view to winning the confidence of all sections of society and expand its base.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi last month sought inputs from the party's state units to finalise the "agenda for action" and the way forward for its ratification in the next AICC session likely in March. With youth virtually deserting it in last Lok Sabha polls, Congress is betting big on young voters in its revival plan to counter the Narendra Modi "wave" that has led to a trail of defeats for the party. And as such the ensuing organizational polls could see a large number of youth being inducted in party fold at various levels.

The party also plans to come out with a compilation of the suggestions received from the grass roots in a booklet form. There is a view in the party that since the next general elections will be held five years from now, it is time for the party to focus on its organisation in the states.

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