The Hindu : Bid to end nomination culture in Cong.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 05, 2003

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Bid to end nomination culture in Cong.

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI JULY 4. Is the culture of nominating handpicked leaders to important positions in the Congress about to end?

Suggestions to the effect have been made to the committee entrusted with preparing a position paper on the election preparedness and organisational reforms. It has received several recommendations seeking an end to the nomination culture and elections to all important bodies in the party, including thee CWC.

Some of the other recommendations included downsizing the CWC and holding regular elections to all important offices and decision-making bodies of the party, right down to the block level. It was also suggested that the Congress' election preparedness would be greatly enhanced if its candidates for the Assembly and parliamentary elections were announced months in advance.

The suggestion for early announcement of the list of candidates is not new. It was part of the recommendations made by the A.K. Antony committee, set up in the wake of the debacle in the last Lok Sabha elections. Some CWC members argued that announcing the names of the candidates in advance would allow their opponents time to sabotage the elections. Special attention is being paid to the party's organisational weaknesses, and one of the suggestions is that the party should try and have sufficient active members at every election booth in the country. Several members pointed out that there were some States where the party did not even have a block president. They urged the leadership to move with haste to fill up the organisational vacancies in order to whip the organisation into shape.

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