With the Karnataka elections now over and the Congress managing to stop the BJP from forming government in the southern state, the focus is now again on the question of when party president Rahul Gandhi will constitute the Congress Working Committee (CWC), which is the highest decision making body of the grand old party.
It has been over two months since the AICC, at its March 16-18 plenary session in Delhi, authorised Rahul Gandhi to constitute the CWC. Earlier, there had been speculation on whether Rahul Gandhi, who has spoken in favour of greater intra-party democracy, would go in for the election route to constitute the new working committee.
It is now believed that the Congress chief will soon finalise the new CWC, as the assembly polls in Karnataka over, and as Rahul Gandhi expected to embark on a Kailash Mansarovar yatra. He had, at the Jan Aakrosh rally in Delhi last month, sought permission from party workers to proceed on the yatra after the elections in Karnataka.
“It will happen very soon,” is all that Ashok Gehlot, AICC general secretary in-charge of organisation, was willing to say on when the new CWC would be announced.
However, according to sources in the party, there is a bit of restlessness among leaders with regard to the 'delay' in the constitution of the new CWC. It is being felt that certain crucial issues, such as whether the party ought to have initiated moves for impeachment of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, need to be discussed by the CWC so as to elicit the views of different sections of the party at a single forum. The impression that has gone out is that there was a sharp divide in the Congress on the impeachment move, and this could have been avoided had the CWC debated the issue.
Also, there is speculation on how different the new CWC will be from the CWC of former party chief Sonia Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi is expected to bring new and younger faces into the committee, but he will be under pressure to maintain a balance between the old and the new. The changes effected by Rahul Gandhi in the AICC Secretariat so far could be seen as an indication of what can be expected with regard to the age profile of the new CWC.
Rahul Gandhi looks inclined to give the younger leaders a chance, as reflected in the recent appointment of Rajiv Satav and Jitendra Singh – leaders from the Rahul Gandhi brigade – as AICC in-charge of Gujarat and Odisha, respectively. However, by handing over the important responsibility of looking after the organisation to senior leader Ashok Gehlot, and relying on veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to ensure the Congress-JD(S) alliance came about, Rahul Gandhi has shown that the seniors too will find a place in the new scheme of things.