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Congress to weed out bogus membership

NEW DELHI: The Congress Working Committee on Wednesday approved proposals to amend the party constitution to weed out bogus membership and allow for larger participation by delegates in AICC sessions.

Another proposal is that two delegates, including a woman, will be elected from the primary unit to the block level.

The hour-long meeting, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, approved the amendments, as also four resolutions for adoption at the AICC meeting to be held here on November 17.

The constitution amendment proposals were made by a committee set up by Ms. Gandhi after the Hyderabad AICC session. It was headed by Pranab Mukherjee.

The major amendment was to rules under Article V, wherein it was proposed to replace “primary member” and “active member” with “member.” Earlier, a primary member had to enrol 25 members to become an active member. This gave rise to a lot of bogus membership. Now there would be only one membership form. The subject committee, which vets the resolutions before the plenary, will be pruned. This has been proposed so that there will be no overlap at the AICC session, and Pradesh Congress Committee and AICC delegates will get more time to air their views.

The subject committee will be limited to 150 members, including CWC members and some members of the PCC and the AICC. A proposal to replace block and district-level Congress committees with Assembly and parliamentary panels was not taken up.

The resolutions to be placed before the AICC meeting relate to the centenary of the Satyagraha movement; 150 years of the first War of Independence; 60 years of Independence and one on the political, economic and international situation.

New members Rahul Gandhi, Prithviraj Chavan and Kishore Chandra Deo attended.

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