A welcome step

The Congress’ decision to disclose the list of all electors may reduce Gandhi family’s dominance

In the run-up to the election for the next Congress president, the party leadership has agreed to disclose the list of all 9,000 delegates who comprise the electoral college. This is a good decision. Five Members of Parliament, including former Union Ministers Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari, and Karti Chidambaram, had asked Congress Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry to ensure “transparency and fairness” in the election process. It may be noted that Karti’s father, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, is not a member of the so-called G-23, the group of Congress leaders which is critical of the role of the Gandhi family (though Tharoor and Tewari are members of that group). Mistry also informed the five MPs that for the first time, QR code-based identity cards would be issued to all the delegates across the 28 States and nine Union Territories which have Congress Committees. These are very good moves, for these would not only ensure transparency in the election but also help all candidates — even those who are critical of the family — in their campaigns. Now they would know which people they have to reach out to. Also, this would preclude any grumbling on the part of the losers after the party poll; they can’t cry ‘Hamein to pata hi nahi tha vote kaun de raha hai.’ Further, everyone in the party would know that the party president has been properly elected through democratic means, not chosen by the family.

In other words, it is now incumbent upon the 9,000 electors to strive to take the grand old party out from the morass that engulfs it, having lost two successive general elections and dozens of State Assembly elections and facing the embarrassing prospect of exodus of senior leaders. If the GOP presidential election is free and fair, nobody would have the moral case to blame the Gandhi family for the precipitous decline it has suffered in the last few years. If they still elect a family member or a leader enjoying its blessings, they themselves would be responsible for the sclerosis, if not demise, of the party that dominated the national scene for over a century. Even if they were made electors because of their loyalty to the family, they must realise that loyalty to the party should be put above that to the family. The family may have led the grand old party to power many a time in the past, but at present it has failed miserably in its contests against the Bharatiya Janata Party. Rahul Gandhi is trying hard to build momentum against the saffron party, the Bharat Jodo yatra being a testimony to his efforts, but his and his family members’ decisions in the recent past have immensely hurt the party’s prospects. Favouring Navjot Singh Sidhu over Amarinder Singh takes the cake. It is time the 9,000 electors ensured that the Congress is freed from the clutches of the family whose control over it is strangling it.

Source: The Pioneer