Congress student wing announces 4-week internship programme

Move comes after Rahul invited youth to join the party

In a first, the Congress’ student wing has invited applications from students and professionals under 30 years to participate in a four-week internship programme in June.

Separately, the party’s women wing — the All India Mahila Congress — too has invited applications from students and research scholar for an internship programme to draft a policy paper on women and children’s issue.

Participation of leaders

Titled ‘Future of India Fellowship’, the public policy course, will be addressed by top party leaders like Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, Sachin Pilot, Sam Pitroda and Ajay Maken. From talking about the economy and Budget making to foreign policy, technology and contemporary politics in India, every speaker will share their experiences.

These initiatives comes a month after party chief Rahul Gandhi invited the youth to join the Congress party at its 84th plenary session in March this year.

“Look at this stage and compare with such political meetings of all the parties. You would not find a more empty stage like this one. I have cleared it for you,” Mr. Gandhi in his concluding speech at the plenary.

With half of India’s population being under 30 years of age, for the Congress party, youth is now a key focus in the battle of 2019 elections. For close to a year now, Mr. Gandhi has been attacking the Modi government for failing to generate two crore jobs every year and mentioned it as a key challenge at Jan Akrosh rally where he sounded the poll bugle.

“If you look at the BJP’s 2014 campaign, the youth almost entirely voted for them. They wanted change and were hoping that things would get better under Mr. Modi. But the government seems clueless and we can pitch ourselves as the only party who has the experience to deliver,” a former UPA Minister said.