The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee has decided to revamp District Congress Committees (DCCs) and Block Congress Committees (BCCs), and five working presidents have been asked to submit reports in a week on appointing new office-bears to DCCs and BCCs.
KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar on Saturday held a meeting with five working presidents – Satish Jarkiholi, Eshwar Khandre, Saleem Ahmed, Ramalinga Reddy, and R. Dhruvanarayana – and asked them to visit districts and hold meetings with DCC office-bearers and workers to find suitable candidates to strengthen the party organisation.
The decision to revamp DCC and BCC office-bearers has apparently created apprehensions and fear among the loyalists of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that Mr. Shivakumar would remove those loyal to the former Chief Minister and appoint his own persons. This was considered as one of the reasons for some MLAs trying to project Mr. Siddaramaiah as the party's face in the 2023 Assembly elections, sources said.
Mr. Saleem Ahmed said office-bearers of some DCCs would be changed in order to strengthen the party organisation from the grass-root level. A decision would also be to taken to drop some of the KPCC office-bearers and party cells.
Mr. Jarkiholi said DCC presidents who have completed their terms would be replaced. All those who completed two terms as DCC presidents would also be replaced.
Outreach
The Congress leaders also discussed the rolling out of the party’s “outreach campaign” with an objective to provide relief to the people affected by COVID-19 and to collect data on people who succumbed to deaths, and loss of jobs.
The campaign would help the party to disseminate information regarding issues related to COVID and post-COVID care and identifying the demands of COVID-affected families, in order to raise them politically, Mr. Shivakumar said in a release.
“This outreach programme shall be done by organising visits by local leaders (at the level of district, block, and taluk) to the households of the COVID-affected families,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
For the programme, the KPCC has decided to identify five urban/semi-urban target groups and five rural groups and it would also be setting up a control room to collect the data.
The leaders also held a virtual meeting with Randeep Singh Surjewala, AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, on implementation of the outreach programme.
