New Delhi: It will take another year before the Congress has a full-time president, according to the schedule announced by the party after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting Saturday.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala and organisational General Secretary K.C. Venugopal announced at a press conference that the CWC has agreed on the schedule for internal polls. According to the schedule, the polls for the post of party president will be held between 21 August 2022 and 20 September 2022. This will be followed by the CWC election at a plenary session, the date of which is yet to be discussed, but will tentatively be between September and October 2022.
In the run-up to the party president polls, there will be a slew of other internal party elections starting from November 2021. The enrolment of members for organisational elections will begin from 1 November and go on until 31 March 2022. Then, from 16 April to 31 May 2022, elections to the posts of primary committee and block committee presidents will be held. Elections for the posts of officebearers of district Congress committees (DCCs) will be held from 1 June to 20 July, while those for pradesh Congress committees (PCCs) will be held from 21 July to 20 August 2022.
The demand to hold elections for the post of the party president as well as the CWC is one that has gained momentum within the party in the last year, notably after 23 Congress leaders wrote to interim president Sonia Gandhi demanding a “full-time and effective leadership”.
Kapil Sibal, one of the most vocal members of the group, dubbed the G-23 when it first emerged, had last month raised a clamour over the demands not having been met yet, and asked for a CWC meeting.
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Training programme for party cadres, leaders
The Congress has announced a series of internal reforms in the form of “training programmes” for party cadres and leaders.
“There will be massive, regular training programmes for leaders at all levels from top to bottom within the party. The workers and leaders will be trained in party ideology, election management, how to spread awareness about the failures of the present government, etc,” Venugopal told the media.
He added that there will be “mass awareness programmes” between 14 November and 29 November where DCC heads will undertake padyatras to raise issues such as inflation and farm laws.
“The CWC has decided that there must be ground mass awareness programmes. The party workers need to reach maximum people and create awareness on the poor performance of the central government,” he said.
The CWC also passed three resolutions — one against inflation in the country, the second on the agrarian crisis, and third on the India-China conflict in Ladakh.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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