Youth Congress scraps internal polls for president selection

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Dec 10, 2020 08:14 AM IST

The Youth Congress has abolished the electoral-college and secret ballot methods and devised a new format that is based on membership enrolment to elect its state unit chiefs, one of the functionaries said.

The youth wing of the Congress has scrapped the internal elections that were started in 2008 by former president Rahul Gandhi in an effort to bring internal democracy into the organisation, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.

The top three candidates with maximum enrolment will be called for an interview and the final selection will be based on ideology and previous organisational work, according to the Youth Congress website.(Arabinda Mahapatra/File Photo)
The top three candidates with maximum enrolment will be called for an interview and the final selection will be based on ideology and previous organisational work, according to the Youth Congress website.(Arabinda Mahapatra/File Photo)

The Youth Congress has abolished the electoral-college and secret ballot methods and devised a new format that is based on membership enrolment to elect its state unit chiefs, one of the functionaries said. According to the new selection method launched in Himachal Pradesh recently, a person who enrols maximum numbers of members will be eligible to become a Youth Congress president for the state.

The top three candidates with maximum enrolment will be called for an interview and the final selection will be based on ideology and previous organisational work, according to the Youth Congress website.

The other posts will be allocated in the sequence of members enrolled, it added.

In Himachal Pradesh, three candidates – Nigam Bhandari, Yadopati Thakur and Amit Pathania – were shortlisted for the final selection. Bhandari, who had enrolled 39,796 members, was appointed the president of the Himachal chapter, while Thakur, with the enrolment of 37,665 members, bagged the post of working president. With 5,968 enrolments, Pathania was named the state vice-president. The posts of general secretaries in open and reserved categories were filled accordingly.

The same model will be adopted in the upcoming selection process in Gujarat, Telangana and Mumbai, the functionary quoted above said on the condition of anonymity. However, elections to the posts in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh will be held as per the old format given that the process in these states had started some months ago, the functionary added.

The new changes came into being following a series of complaints to Rahul Gandhi by senior Congress functionaries and other leaders regarding the anomalies in the internal election process in the Youth Congress. Some of these leaders had also repeatedly raised the matter with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

A second Congress functionary, who did not want to be named, said the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the party, will review this model in January-February next year and take a final call on the selection process to be adopted in the youth wing.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Aurangzeb Naqshbandi covers politics and keeps a close watch on developments in Jammu & Kashmir. He has been a journalist for 16 years.

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