Rahul Gandhi demands assurance that recommended Congress candidates will win polls

Rahul Gandhi’s diktat has left senior Congress leaders terrified. With assembly elections in five states round-the-corner, the Congress vice-president has demanded an assurance from these leaders that their chosen candidates will win the election. If they don’t, the leaders will be held responsible and face the music. By November, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram will go to polls.

Party leaders are now wary of recommending candidates. They believe the wrong selection of people to contest the assembly elections could hamper their chances of winning a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls next year.

A senior Congress leader expressed his unhappiness with the timing of the diktat, saying this was not the time to experiment as internal surveys have already painted a grim picture for the party. “Who can guarantee a victory for candidates when it is a secret ballot? Also, nobody is sure of the results till the day of counting,” he told dna on condition of anonymity.

The Congress already appears like a divided house given that its meetings to choose poll candidates are marred by fights among state leaders. A meeting of Chhattisgarh leaders convened by general secretary CP Joshi in the capital recently saw a heated debate for half the time on the issue of including former chief minister Ajit Jogi in the core selection team. PCC president Charan Mahant and opposition leader in the assembly, Ravindra Choube, were against accommodating Jogi.

CP Joshi, however, wanted the former chief minister in the fray to contain the damage he was doing by declaring candidates on his own. These candidates, Joshi believes, will remain in contention as ‘rebels’, thereby marring the Congress’s chances of winning in the BJP-ruled state.       

At a meeting with central party functionaries, PCC presidents, chief ministers and leaders of Congress legislature parties in Delhi on Wednesday, Rahul issued a strict guideline to reject names of those who had either turned ‘rebels’ and contested against Congress candidates or lost the assembly election twice.

Those who had forfeited their security deposit in the last election should not be considered as poll candidates either, Rahul said. This time, the names of poll aspirants were sought from the district Congress committee presidents.

They were given a 15-page pro forma with questions such as reasons for recommending the candidate, details of his stint in the Congress, his past performance, and the number of rallies and meetings he held in his constituency. The recommendations were then vetted by observers sent to each district.