'One family, one ticket' gets Congress approval, but conditions apply

The Nav Sankalp (new resolution) declaration adopted after a brainstorming of the Congress brass at a conclave in Udaipur will likely result in extensive changes in the functioning of the party, and a countrywide padyatra by Rahul Gandhi, along with mass contact programmes by the party, but many said it still fell short of meeting the electoral challenges looming on the horizon.

In his speech, party leader Rahul conceded that the connection between the people and the party had been broken and promised to rebuild it. He also rejected all charges of corruption.

“I have not taken one rupee from Mother India, I am afraid of nothing, and I will fight back,” he announced amid cheers. The family is facing investigations into the functioning of several party trusts in which various members of the family are represented.

According to the Udaipur Declaration adopted on Sunday, the party will ensure no office-bearer will remain in his post for more than five years. All party organisations, starting with the Congress Working Committee, will have at least 50 per cent members below the age of 50.

Special interest groups like Dalits, minorities, and women will be represented at all levels in the party via reservation.  A one man, one post rule will be implemented through the party; and two members of the same family will be eligible to hold office only if both have put in at least five years in the organisation.

The changes proposed by electoral strategist Prashant Kishor, who had suggested that the Gandhi family dissociate itself from the actual running of the party — paring Rahul’s role in running the organisation and the appointment of a non-Gandhi as party president — was not discussed. The Group of 23 (or G23), members of which, like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Prithviraj Chavan, and Manish Tewari, were present at Udaipur saw its most crucial demands, like revival of the parliamentary board, ignored.

The Udaipur declaration referred to other aspects relating to political and electoral management, something most delegates present here have voiced in one or other way — that the party must be turned into an effective election-fighting machine. For this, taking a leaf out of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) book, the party has pledged to fill up all vacancies at the block, district and national levels, with special emphasis at the mandal level.

Adapting the Aam Aadmi Party model, the party will solicit and tap public opinion to get suggestions for policy and administrative functioning. For this a new public insight department is to be set up.

A national training institute will be set up to train Congress workers in the party’s history and political ideology. The Kerala-based Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies is envisaged as the institution for this purpose.

A social justice advisory council will be constituted to advise the leadership on specific schemes for Scheduled Castes/Tribes.

In its economic resolution, the party, while lauding its economic liberalisation and reform initiatives of the 1990s, also emphasised that employment now needed to be the cornerstone of the country’s priorities.

The party also pledged to oppose ‘thoughtless’ privatisation, especially the sell-off of profitable state-owned enterprises without making any provision for the social justice element that these fostered. It drew attention to the steadily deteriorating environment of Centre-state relations.

The next manifesto of the party will pledge to remove electronic voting machines from the electoral system and revert to paper ballot if the Congress returns to power at the Centre.

In his speech, Rahul remarked with a smile that some members of the party got ‘depressed’ by the setbacks. This was the only an obliqué public reference to the G23 and its demands that the Congress enforce structural reforms.  He asserted that there is no shortcut to reconnecting with the people and the party will have to sweat it out. “Spend months, not just one or two days among farmers and labourers,” he appealed to party workers and leaders.

“If there is one area the BJP is better at, it is communication. It has the money and the resources. We have to reform our communication and connect with the people. When we aggressively change the party structure at grassroots level, we will be able to take on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)," he said.

The RSS and the BJP’s attempts to end the ‘tradition of conversation’ in India’s democracy will have to be fought by every Congressman who believes in India’s democracy, said Rahul.

“We will overcome, we will overcome, we will overcome,” said party president Sonia Gandhi, in her concluding address, while adding that party reforms will enable the organisation to focus on the 2024 general elections.