JOIN USAhead of the organisational elections, the Congress has embarked on a massive membership drive with focus on the youth, who would be Rahul Gandhi’s army to take on future challenges faced by the party.
In a bid to weed out bogus members from the party, the Congress leadership has issued directions to workers to go to the booth level and enrol members after obtaining their signatures on membership forms and affixing photographs.
Earlier, the Congress had two categories of member– primary and active. A primary member would graduate to the active category if he enrolled 25 members and worked for the party for two consecutive years.
“Many members used the easy way out of inducting 25 primary members by picking names from electoral rolls and paying the nominal membership fee from their pockets,” a senior leader said.
To rectify this anomaly, the Congress amended its constitution at the AICC Plenary Session at Burari in 2010 and did away with the two different categories of memberships.
The Congress is also mulling over giving identity cards to each of its members to impart authenticity to the numbers.
During the previous organisational polls, the Congress had 3.5 crore members, but the numbers were always under question as there was no way to cross-check their credentials. The membership drive will continue till December 31.