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Intermediary leadership of Congress draws flak

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Armed with an endorsement of their grouse against the party’s power brokers by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s utterances against coterie politics, Block Congress Committee (BCC) and District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents on Sunday trained their guns on the intermediary leadership.

Mrs. Gandhi gave them the cue in her inaugural address at the national convention of BCC and DCC presidents here, and they grabbed the opportunity, speaking out openly – sometimes pointedly, albeit without taking names but leaving no doubt about whom they had in mind.

Urging workers to place the party above self, Mrs. Gandhi said that very often the Congress failed at the hustings because of infighting and not opposition from outside. This, coupled with her earlier comment on dynastic politics and the advantage enjoyed by youngsters from entrenched Congress families, gave the BCC and DCC presidents the confidence to speak out.

And speak out they did. Rajesh Tewari (Chhattisgarh) said the Congress lost the State Assembly because of internal sabotage and lamented that Mrs. Gandhi’s renunciation of the Prime Minister’s office had not inspired any senior leader to make way for a younger leadership.

Urging the Congress to consult BCC and DCC presidents while finalising candidates, Senapati Venu (Kerala) said the general impression was that a sweeper or tea vendor at the party headquarters could get a ticket because of proximity. “But, they will not win,” he cautioned.

These first two speakers set the tone and most DCC and BCC presidents who followed kept up the refrain. While Ravindra Kale (Maharashtra) described the power brokers as “circuit house and aerodrome leaders,” his colleague Vinayak Rao Deshmukh lamented at the manner in which some families cornered all posts in the organisation and the government.

Mr. Gandhi stepped in to add more fuel to the fire by demanding that the closed doors of the Congress be opened to all. Referring to the common view of politics being a dirty job, he said there was a need to break down this wall that has come up between politics and the youth.

Specifically to the Congress, he said youngsters were wary of entering the National Students Union of India and the Indian Youth Congress because of the general impression that one cannot first get in without recommendation and money and then move up without sycophancy.

Elaborating on the efforts to democratise the two frontal organisations in Punjab and Uttarakhand, he promised to replicate the experiment across the country over the next two years as part of a larger exercise to prepare a young force of workers for the party. And, for this, he got an indulgent acknowledgement from his mother. Signing off the day’s proceedings, she said: “I get the feeling that he is not going to stop now.”

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