Will Congress emulate Rahul to hold party polls?

NEW DELHI: Will the Congress, often caught in controversies on bogus membership, take a cue from Rahul Gandhi?
     
This is the question doing rounds in party circles after the AICC General Secretary's move to go in for organisational elections in two youth wing party units -- the NSUI and Youth Congress.
     
Rahul's step is the "best thing that has happened to the party in recent years," former Union Minister Ram Niwas Mirdha says.
     
Gandhi, who is in charge of Youth Congress and the NSUI, has ordered formal elections to the two bodies in Punjab and Uttarakhand respectively, the first such exercise in their history.
     
Mirdha suggests that Gandhi's exercise needed to be emulated in the parent organisation which had so far failed to conduct proper elections despite efforts by Sonia Gandhi.
     
The problem of bogus membership has often cropped up and during Indira Gandhi's days, when the late Sitaram Kesri was in charge of party elections in Uttar Pradesh, the saying became popular "na khata, na bahi, jo kahe Kesari, wohi sahi (there is no record or register, whatever Kesari says is final)".
     
Mirdha is a strong votary of proper conduct of organisational elections and had headed the Central Election Authority of the party for some time. The Authority has been entrusted with the task of holding organisational polls and was set up when Sonia took over the reins a decade back.      

The Youth Congress as also the NSUI have been following the nomination culture, a practice common in the grand old party which is the parent body.

Even the elections to the Congress Working Committee have been rarely held, the last time being in 1997 at the Kolkata Plenary.
    
Senior Congress leader Margaret Alva, who accompanied Gandhi in his recent tour of Punjab, is also ecstatic over how the young leader has been energising the youth.
    
Mirdha dismisses apprehensions that holding of organisational elections could lead to money power gaining control of the party. "It cannot be worse," he says.
    
He insists that Sonia made sincere efforts to ensure genuine membership at all levels but "we did not let it happen."
    
If organisational elections are held, then the question of accountability would automatically be addressed, he said, adding that at present any nominated office-bearer cannot claim legitimacy because he has not come through proper elections.
    
At the same time, Mirdha says holding proper organisational polls is not restricted only to the Congress "but all parties are working undemocratically."
   
At present, there are 800 parties registered with the Election Commission, which does not have powers to derecognise them, he says.
    
"A party has a definite connotation in parliamentary form of governance and therefore if we want the system to work successfully, the parties must have to be properly organised and registered under law which will expect them to hold regular and open elections," Mirdha says.
    
This would definitely strengthen the functioning of democracy in the country, he feels.