NEW RESOLUTION, OLD CONGRESS

On May 16, a day after the Congress ended its three-day-long Nav Sankalp Shivir in Udaipur, the party witnessed a formal gesture.

- Kaushik Deka

T.N. Prathapan resigned from a post he had been holding since 2017—that of national chairman, the All India Fishermen Congress. He did so in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Udaipur resolution, which, among other things, declared that no person in the party would hold the same position for more than five years. The key question now is: will other stalwarts in the party voluntarily walk the talk when it comes to organisational reforms?

That there is an urgent need to make key alterations in the party’s organisational structure if it has to find a road to revival was acknowledged by Congress president Sonia Gandhi herself. The “most immediately relevant” resolutions are related to organisational reforms, she said in her concluding speech. But the heads of several departments of the party have been occupying the positions for more than five years— take communication, law, research and the professional Congress. In his own words, Mukul Wasnik has been a general secretary for over two decades. Will we see everyone acting in concord with Prathapan’s gesture?

At Udaipur, the party also made a few other radical decisions. A new layer has been created in the organisation: mandal committees, which will be placed between the level of the booth and that of blocks. The performance of every officer-bearer, from the booth to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body, will be evaluated. “General secretaries will be given specific tasks and the organisational general secretary will evaluate them based on their performance,” said Ajay Maken, two days after the Udaipur resolution.