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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Congress primaries fail to serve up too many surprises
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Congress primaries fail to serve up too many surprises

Most of the candidates selected through the process are either sitting lawmakers or relatives of top party leaders

Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Photo: HTPremium
Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Photo: HT

New Delhi: Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s plan to democratize the party through primaries, or internal elections, has failed to throw up too many surprises, with most of the candidates selected through this process being either sitting lawmakers or relatives of top party leaders.

The Congress had conducted primaries, aimed to empower the party workers in the selection of candidates and to ensure that party workers rise up the ladder, in 15 constituencies in various states. While all the three sitting members of Parliament (MPs), who chose to adopt this route to clear their candidacy, have been able to retain their seats, it has thrown some ground-level leaders including a district committee chief into the Lok Sabha poll fray.

Gandhi had, in his address to a Congress party meeting in January, announced that a representative cross-section of party workers, leaders and other influencers, satisfying certain criteria will choose Congress candidate from their constituency by participating in a simple voting process in 15 parliamentary constituencies. Although there were hiccups with some leaders raising objections to the idea. The party had to review its decision to go for primaries in the constituencies of union ministers Kapil Sibal and Krishna Tirath, both in Delhi.

While sitting lawmakers Ajay Maken and Jaiprakash Agarwal retained their seats in New Delhi and North West Delhi, respectively, Gandhi’s close aide and sitting MP from Mandsaur Meenakshi Natarajan won the primary election with a huge margin.

Among those who have been chosen in the primaries included Manash Bora (Guwahati), son of a sitting Assam cabinet minister Akon Bora; Rajbala Ola (Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan), daughter-in-law of late union minister Sis Ram Ola who was elected from the same constituency; former union minister Janardhana Poojary (Dakshin Kannada, Karnataka); and former parliamentarian C. Narayanaswamy (North Bangalore). From Bikaner, Shankar Pannu, a former MP from Sriganganagar was selected.

Rahul Gandhi, since he took over as the vice-president of the party in January 2013, has tried to introduce major changes in the process of picking candidates, make the candidate selection process more democratic and politically empower workers at the grassroot level.

In the state units, he launched an exercise that would elevate party workers or leaders on the basis of their performance.

Prakash Joshi, Congress party secretary in charge of conducting primaries, said that the exercise had not only energized the workers in the constituencies it has helped the party to pick up more credible candidates in difficult constituencies. “In Bhavnagar, Gujarat, Pravin Rathod, who belongs to Koli community has won the primaries. In Vadodara also, the usual process of candidates selection would not have been able to give the ticket to Narendra Kumar Rawat, city president of Vadodara," Joshi said.

Joshi said the primaries helped the party to choose winnable candidates in Uttar Pradesh too. Ashok Singh, a local leader who has won the primaries from Ambedkar Nagar, has been declared as the candidate from the same constituency, 35-year-old Rohit Kumar Pandey, a Delhi University graduate in economics is contesting from Sant Kabir Nagar. “The exercise has been very successful," Joshi said. According to a Congress leader, considered to be close to Gandhi, the Congress vice- president was keen on introducing primaries in more number of constituencies.

“But we need to have manpower and other resources to complete the process in the short span of time," he said. Elections to 543 Lok Sabha constituencies have been announced and it will be conducted over a month beginning 7 April.

The Congress has released the names of candidates for 265 constituencies.

Gandhi’s thrust on democratization of internal politics in the party as well as his attempts to bring in more fresh faces and young men and women into the leadership are aimed to dilute the popular resentment against the ruling party.

The Congress and its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government have been facing intense criticism over some of its leaders’ involvement in corruption scandals.

Jai Mrug a Mumbai based political analyst said that the outcome reflects the structure of the party.

“Ideas appeal to Indian voters only if it is attached with a direct tangible outcome. Unlike democracies which are 200-300 years old, we are just 60 year old. So, ideas that sell in India still need to relate with day-to-day tangible outcomes and not a process. Primaries is just a process," he added.

liz.m@livemint.com

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Published: 16 Mar 2014, 11:36 PM IST
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