The internal rewiring of a grand old party: Congress focuses on DCCs for revival

Khilesh Dewangan, a 40-year-old Congress person successful Chhattisgarh, knows the likelihood are stacked against him. Yet, determination is assurance successful his stride arsenic helium submits his credentials to beryllium appointed arsenic the party’s Raipur Rural territory president.

He believes the Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan (SSA), which translates arsenic organisation re-creation run – the Congress’s caller experimentation successful enactment enactment – gives workers similar him a uncommon accidental to interruption done entrenched hierarchies. “In the mean people of things, my property and comparative stature would person gone against me,” Dewangan admits with a smile.

An assignment process that sits neatly betwixt “the accustomed nominations” and a full-fledged organisational election, the SSA involves neutral observers from different States shortlisting six imaginable contenders for the station of District Congress Committee (DCC) president.

The 850 DCC presidents person go the focal constituent of the party’s revival programme. Under the DCCs, determination are 3 different tiers: block-, mandal-, and booth-level leadership.

The SSA was adopted successful April astatine the Ahmedabad league of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), a cardinal decision-making assemblage that is astatine the apical of the party’s organisational structure. The different tiers see the Congress Working Committee that runs the party’s regular affairs, the Pradesh Congress Committee that consists of heads of States, and the DCCs for which heads are being chosen. The observers for the DCC enactment process beryllium to the AICC.

Once termed “the Congress System” by governmental idiosyncratic Rajni Kothari to picture the party’s dominance successful India’s governmental system, the party’s bulky machinery is beset with some interior and outer problems today. Critics reason that its highly centralised enactment and dynastic predilections person stymied the maturation of grassroots workers. Externally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindutva level person changed India’s governmental narrative, with the Congress struggling to connection an effectual counter.

Though it has astir six crore members, the 139-year-old party’s governmental footprint has steadily declined implicit the years. The Congress has not been successful powerfulness astatine the Centre since 2014 and is ruling lone 3 States – Karnataka, Telangana, and Himachal Pradesh – of the country’s 28. It is present hoping to make a much agile and accountable operation by combining younker outreach, conducting performance-based reviews, and balancing societal practice done the SSA.

“After the Udaipur Declaration [of May 2022], Rahul Gandhi [Leader of the Opposition successful the Lok Sabha] and Mallikarjun Kharge [Congress president] started this initiative. Under this, it was decided that 50% of territory presidents would beryllium beneath the property of 50,” says erstwhile Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. He hopes that the endeavour volition enactment existent to the program and that the AICC volition not extremity up picking candidates of its prime without considering merit.

The DCCs person been empowered to instrumentality some governmental decisions and stock fiscal responsibilities for their regions. They volition besides beryllium held accountable for their performance, which volition beryllium measured successful presumption of organisation-building close up to the polling booth, predetermination management, ground-level activity, and responsiveness to the demands of enactment workers. So far, the enactment has undertaken the workout successful 10 States, opening with Gujarat.

Grassroots workers find their voice

In the earlier strategy of appointing DCC presidents, the heads of Pradesh Congress Committees would hand-pick their nominees. Now, radical tin use for the job.

“It is not often that idiosyncratic similar maine tin adjacent beryllium talked astir arsenic a contender. Usually, those who orbit astir elder leaders automatically marque the cut. This time, adjacent lasting successful the ringing matters,” Dewangan says.

One of his rivals is the lad of a erstwhile Pradesh Congress Committee president, but Dewangan insists that is precisely wherefore the process matters. “It volition energise the cadre,” helium says, speaking for hundreds of different hopefuls.

In Chhattisgarh’s capital, Raipur, preliminary discussions person begun to constrictive down the database of six candidates for the agrarian and metropolis organisations. There are 41 organisational districts successful the State wherever the enactment has suffered a hat-trick of defeats, including the Assembly predetermination of December 2023.

At the Raipur territory office, wherever AICC perceiver Prafulla Vinodrao Gudadhe from Maharashtra is holding marathon meetings with astir 300 office-bearers, the temper is upbeat. Contenders hold successful the corridor clutching their information papers and rehearsing their pitches. Discussions are long, sometimes tense, but for many, this is the closest they person travel to being heard.

“Even if I marque it to the shortlist, it raises my stature. At slightest present I’ll beryllium seen arsenic being connected a par with an MLA,” says an aspirant successful his 40s who doesn’t privation to beryllium named.

Leaders representation progress

Over 1,100 km away, Congress person K.C. Venugopal, the antheral who is starring the party’s revival efforts arsenic wide caput (organisation), is engaged gathering leaders from Punjab on with the AICC wide caput successful complaint of the State, Bhupesh Baghel, to reappraisal the organisation-building exercise. Bureaucrat-turned-politician Sashikanth Senthil, who represents Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur constituency successful the Lok Sabha, besides joins the treatment arsenic helium heads the Congress warfare room. Former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and State Congress main Amrinder Singh Raja Warring hold for their crook to conscionable Venugopal.

“Observers, guided by the Congress president and Rahul Gandhiji, walk a week successful each district, consulting thousands of section workers and assemblage leaders. This is the astir participatory enactment process the enactment has ever undertaken,” Venugopal says betwixt his meetings astatine Indira Bhavan, the enactment office successful New Delhi that was inaugurated successful January this year.

He says the party’s investigation reveals that it is expanding wherever the organisational operation – from artifact to booth committees – is strong.

“Now, appointments are based connected consultation and performance, ensuring assemblage practice and grassroots strength. Not each DCCs execute arsenic well, but we are monitoring their enactment daily, assigning wide tasks and verifying results,” helium says, informing that those who neglect to present volition beryllium replaced wrong 5 to six months. This accountability is portion of the party’s caller experiment.

Venugopal, with the assistance of the Congress warfare room, monitors the advancement of tasks fixed to territory units each fortnight oregon so. From door-to-door campaigns of the party’s nationalist drives against alleged ballot theft and the peculiar intensive revision of electoral rolls to defending the law rights of people, the organisational revamp besides seeks to support enactment workers engaged. “The extremity is to instrumentality the Congress’s ideology to the ground, rebuild booth-level committees, and bring influential section figures into the organisation. The biggest vantage present is data. For the archetypal time, we person elaborate accusation connected each district,” the elder Congress person adds arsenic the enactment maps its beingness down to the polling booth level.

He says the enactment has besides begun large-scale 10-day grooming camps successful which Gandhi volition participate. “The Congress’s halfway connection is simple: basal by the Constitution, support the marginalised, and empower section leaders to rebuild the enactment from the bottommost up,” helium says.

Odisha finds hope

The Congress past came to powerfulness successful Odisha successful 1995 nether the precocious J.B. Patnaik, with Giridhar Gamango and the precocious Hemanand Biswal subsequently starring short-lived stints.

The 1999 Super Cyclone marked a watershed infinitesimal not lone successful the State’s past of disasters but besides successful its authorities arsenic the State government’s faltering effect and allegations of corruption severely dented its credibility. With the emergence of Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), who reshaped Odisha’s governmental landscape, the Congress’s electoral beingness successful the State steadily eroded. Between 1995 and 2024, its ballot stock declined from 39.1% to 13.4%.

The reasons are some structural and political: a weakened cadre network, recurrent factionalism, and the inability to antagonistic either the BJD’s organisational dominance oregon the BJP’s accelerated enlargement successful the State.

Under the SSA, 35 caller DCC chiefs – a premix of elder functionaries and younger entrants, galore successful their 30s – were announced connected September 26 successful Odisha. “As per the SSA framework, district- and State-level warfare rooms volition show activities done a unrecorded integer dashboard. Every booth committee indispensable beryllium afloat functional up of polls,” says OPCC main Bhakta Charan Das.

The archetypal trial of the renewed enactment volition travel successful the Nuapada Assembly bypoll, wherever the enactment hopes for a morale-boosting performance. Later successful November, Gandhi is expected to clasp an predisposition league for caller DCC chiefs arsenic the enactment seeks to rebuild the organisation successful the State.

Not everyone’s happy

Yet, the excitement has its shadows. Despite speech of inclusivity and the Udaipur Declaration promising wider representation, fewer women are disposable successful the race. Some accidental DCC chiefs are inactive being appointed connected the proposal of AICC observers. A enactment insider claimed that successful Madhya Pradesh a DCC main was appointed contempt the campaigner not adjacent making it to the shortlist.

Many gully a parallel betwixt the caller assignment process and Gandhi’s “failed experiment” to name Youth Congress chiefs done U.S.-style primaries.

Gehlot feels nary Congress person should urge names to the AICC observers, truthful that the enactment process remains just and transparent. “After the selection, each leaders should invited and enactment the recently appointed territory presidents. The Congress volition lone go stronger erstwhile we each enactment unneurotic with unity and loyalty to the organisation,” helium says.

Gehlot had to intervene erstwhile enactment workers successful Rajasthan went connected onslaught demanding that the enactment precocious bid travel the erstwhile signifier of appointments. “We person seen specified absorption successful Haryana too, but we don’t o.k. of this benignant of conduct,” Venugopal says, outlining that 1 of the objectives of the revamp is to bespeak a wider societal creation of the leadership.

In Haryana, the party’s constrictive decision successful the October 2024 Assembly predetermination – by little than 1% of the votes – spurred introspection and urgency. Despite precocious expectations of a win, the Congress’s organisational weakness astatine the territory level was glaring, particularly compared with the BJP’s extended ‘panna pramukh’ web to get its supporters to the booth.

The SSA spurred the enactment retired of an 11-year paralysis. All 32 DCC presidents were appointed, balancing communities and factions wrong the party. Ten of the caller territory presidents travel from groups belonging to the Backward Classes. The enactment aims to scope communities comprising astir 40% of Haryana’s electorate.

The lone pistillate DCC president successful the State, Santosh Beniwal, says it whitethorn instrumentality different period for the afloat organisational operation to beryllium successful spot arsenic the process to acceptable up enforcement committees astatine territory and artifact levels is nether way. “The territory presidents person sent the database for the enforcement committees, each comprising 31 members, for the territory and booth levels. It volition beryllium followed by appointments astatine mandal levels,” she says.

In neighbouring Punjab, wherever the enactment witnessed aggravated factionalism earlier, Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa says the workout has helped reinvigorate grassroots workers. “The Sanghatan Srijan Abhiyan is not a regular rank oregon outreach thrust – it is simply a bottom-up organisational rebuilding exercise. Unlike different campaigns that focused chiefly connected mobilisation during elections, this inaugural is astir organization renewal and strengthening of the Congress astatine each level – booth, block, and district.”

Bajwa adds that the enactment is utilizing data-driven feedback mechanisms to measure show and participation, and to link with the existent issues of radical – particularly farmers, youth, and tiny entrepreneurs. “It is astir rebuilding the Congress organisation, not conscionable reactivating it.”

(Shubhomoy Sikdar successful Raipur, Satyasundar Barik successful Bhubaneswar, and Ashok Kumar successful Gurugram; with inputs from Vikas Vasudeva successful Chandigarh.)

Edited by Sunalini Mathew