FOLLOWING a dismal show in the Lok Sabha polls and his advisors inviting criticisms for being largely ?non-political?, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his team are working on a list of 50 hand-picked people. The list will include those with electoral experience and will form the core group and will lead to a revamp in the party.
According to party sources, Rahul hopes to take his vision of the party forward through this list, which includes names like Madhusudan Mistry, Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Lalitesh Tripathi, Rajiv Satav, Ashok Tanwar, Sachin Pilot, Jitin Prasada, Deepender Hooda and R P N Singh among others. The list is also likely to include some key Indian Youth Congress (IYC) members.
Sources say while this list could well be expanded further, it will be a select list of hand-picked leaders, most of whom have either fought elections or are set to enter electoral fray.
Rahul?s key aides, who are likely to continue to form his inner team, have come under increasing criticism from different quarters within the party following a dismal electoral show.
The Congress vice-president has been emphasising on rebuilding the party, which would include introducing elections at every level. At a recent IYC meet, Rahul had reiterated his plans to replicate the Youth Congress experiment of internal elections in the parent party as well, despite reservations being expressed by some IYC members on the functioning of the system.
The sources say Rahul has not directly met senior leaders of the party who lost in the Lok Sabha elections, in an indication that he might be distancing himself from the ?old guard? further, even though general secretaries like Mistry have been asked to meet such leaders to discuss the poll results.
According to the sources, while Rahul has himself met some of the names on the list, his aides are reaching out to some others. However, the idea of a core team has not been communicated to them and the exact functioning and strategy of this team is still being chalked out. A separate website is also being designed to keep in tune with the party?s future strategy under Rahul.
The Indian Express had earlier reported the Congress vice-president and his team?s plans of restructuring the party, aimed at bringing in greater accountability and transparency. The plans included greater democratisation at every level of the party, down to the block level, through elections for the posts of the chiefs of different committees.
