87-yr-old Seva Dal to get a facelift

In tune with Rahul Gandhi’s line that additional management skills could come in handy in modern-day politics, Seva Dal, a frontal grass-roots organisation of the Congress, is donning a modern look while maintaining traditional values.

In tune with Rahul Gandhi’s line that additional management skills could come in handy in modern-day politics, Seva Dal, a frontal grass-roots organisation of the Congress, is donning a modern look while maintaining traditional values.

HT Image

The organisation has brought in MBAs, engineers, doctors, lawyers and artists to give a new shape to party programmes.

“We need professionals to train intellectuals and visionaries. This is for the first time that young educated people are being trained in organisational activities with a modern approach,” Seva Dal chief organiser Mahendra Joshi told HT.

As part of the image makeover, the Seva Dal organised a nine-day national trainers training camp in Delhi from June 25 in which 291 young professionals, including 71 women, participated. All these young faces were graduates and below 35 years of age.

At the camp, they were given training in disaster management, event management, administration, election management, personality management, communication skills and personality development. “The aim was to give new flavour and vision to our traditional activities,” Joshi said.

These professionals would now train 16,000 Seva Dal workers across the country.

Seva Dal was founded in 1923 with Jawaharlal Nehru as its first president. Since then the Nehru-Gandhi family has been associated with the organisation.