Cong ‘leadership mission’ eyes 50 reserved seats ahead of LS polls
A senior Congress leader said the 50 seats (out of the total 131 reserved seats) are those where the party came second in the 2019 elections.
New Delhi: The Congress party on Friday announced a list of coordinators for its leadership development programme in 50 Lok Sabha constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes ahead of the 2024 general elections.
A senior Congress leader said the 50 seats (out of the total 131 reserved seats) are those where the party came second in the 2019 elections.
“The AICC has approved the proposal for the appointment of Leadership Development Mission (LDM) Parliament Coordinators for the SC/ST reserved Parliament Constituencies... with immediate effect,” said a circular issued by Congress general secretary for organisation, KC Venugopal.
The list of 50 reserved seats includes Sasaram, Ahmedabad West, Dahod, Sirsa, Shimla, Chitradurga, Ratlam, Ujjain, Latur, Sholapur, Tura, Dausa, Almora and Khunti.
A senior party functionary involved in the programme said, “We face a serious challenge in developing party leaders among the SC/ST communities. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is a prominent SC leader, but he, too, wants new faces to come up. In several states our SC, ST leadership is virtually ineffective.”
With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections due in 14 months, the Congress has its task cut out to find new candidates in these seats. “We have to find new leaders as well as suitable candidates. Our target is not to identify just one or two leaders in each constituency but a bunch of young party workers who are possible candidate and also can be groomed as future leaders of their respective communities,” said a second leader, declining to be named.
The reachout to SC and ST communities is electorally important as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 77 of the 131 reserved seats in 2019, increasing its tally by 10 seats from the previous Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, the Congress which increased its overall tally from 44 in 2014 to 52 in 2019 elections, won in just nine reserved seats as against 12 in 2014.
