Congress to empower district committees at Gujarat session

New Delhi: Congress will roll out its new organisational 'avatar' by empowering its district committees at the AICC Session in Ahmedabad next month, as the central leadership is giving the final touches to a draft plan that could chip away state unit's powers.

Ahead of the session on April 8 and 9, the party is calling the District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents in three batches on March 27, 28 and April 3 in an exercise that is happening for the first time in 16 years. District presidents of southern states, including Karnataka, as well as eastern and north-eastern states will be the first batch to hold its meeting with the central leadership.

The contours of the draft revamp plan was discussed at a meeting of party General Secretaries and state in-charges chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal.

With a committee led by General Secretary and Gujarat in-charge Mukul Wasnik tasked with suggesting changes, submitting its report, sources said the leaders made more suggestions at the meeting.

Both Kharge and Rahul are in favour of empowering district units even as some leaders cautioned the leadership against reducing the role of state committees. A senior leader told the meeting that state committees' and state presidents' power and role should not have an impact while giving more prominence to district units.

Sources said empowering district committees would mean that they would have more say in candidate selection compared to present times when state leaders could unilaterally ignore suggestions from the ground. The plan is to go back to the 1950s and 1960s when district committees were the power centre, they said.

At the extended Working Committee meeting called on April 8 in Ahmedabad, the plan will be placed for approval and would be rolled out next day in the Session. The changes may include the mode of appointment of district presidents.

Sources said the three meetings of district presidents ahead of Session is not directly linked to organisational revamp but to prepare them for the impending changes. The last such meeting was in 2009.

Sources said the district committees used to have a bigger role in the party till 1967 and the leadership now wants to go back to the roots, while recalling that during those times, the single name suggested by the DCCs were approved without any change by the Central Election Committee.