The Congress’s steering committee decided against holding elections to the party’s highest executive body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), and empowered party president Mallikarjun Kharge to nominate the members.
It also announced that 50% of the seats in the body will be reserved for those from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, and minority groups, and for young people and women.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, a strong supporter for elections even in CWC, was absent along with his mother and former party chief Sonia Gandhi and sister and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from the meeting of the steering committee that took this call.
Addressing a press conference at the end of the 2.5-hour-long meeting of the steering committee, Congress’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said: “It was a unanimous decision not to hold elections for CWC, keeping in mind the key role the Congress will play in the current political situation and to meet the present political challenges. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge has been authorized to nominate CWC members.”
The Congress constitution says that out of 24 CWC members, 12 will be elected, but this is a clause that has been observed more in the breach, with members usually being nominated by the party president.
In the past two years, the now-defunct G23 (a group of 23 Congress members that wrote to Sonia Gandhi, the then president of the party, in August 2020, demanding changes in the way the party functioned and was run) demanded elections in two key bodies – CWC and the Central Election Committee (CEC) that decides candidates for assembly and Lok Sabha polls.
On January 23, HT reported that Congress leaders were not in favour of elections to the two bodies.
Ramesh revealed that a section of the steering committee did demand elections. “There were strong arguments both for and against elections. Ultimately, the steering committee unanimously decided against holding elections. The party will also consider a constitutional amendment to give former party chiefs and former prime ministers automatic entry in CWC. If implemented, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh will continue to be in CWC,” he said.
Two leaders present in the meeting told HT that former Union minister Ajay Maken and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh demanded election in the CWC. But almost all leaders opposed it.
Congress leader Anand Sharma, who earlier was in favour of CWC and CEC elections, spoke for about 15 minutes but did not make any specific demand. Party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi maintained that if at all elections are needed, it should be held after 2024 (Lok Sabha elections). Many leaders agreed with Singhvi.
The new steering committee was named after Kharge was elected president on October 25 last year. It has 47 members, all permanent members of the CWC at the time and all permanent invitees and special invitees with the exception of party MP Shashi Tharoor, who had contested the Congress presidential election against Kharge.
Party leaders said that leaders in favour of nomination argued that if elections took place, it would be nearly impossible to implement the proposed 50% quota, put in place to make the party’s highest executive body more inclusive. Ramesh announced that these quotas would be put in place through amendments in the party constitution.
The party constitution says “out of the 12 members to be elected by the AICC (the All India Congress Committee), not less than 4 members shall be elected from amongst women candidates and not less than 2 from amongst SCs/ STs/ OBCs/ Minorities.”
The AICC includes the party’s central leadership, MPs, chief ministers and functionaries from states.
According to a steering committee member who asked not to be named, the strategic absence of Rahul Gandhi helped them thwart demands for election in CWC. “If Rahul Gandhi has his way, he will have elections for every committee. In two CWC meetings in 2020 and 2021, he agreed for election in CWC. Had he been present in the meeting, it might have been tough to reject the demand for an election.”
It wasn’t clear which of the steering committee’s members were at the forefront of the effort to seek an election.
The 50% quota, to be brought through constitution amendment, was one of the key suggestions of the party’s Udaipur Navsankalp Shivir (brainstorming session) last April.
Ramesh announced that 16 provisions and 32 rules of the Congress party would be changed, in a major overhaul of the party’s constitution.