400 Congress members in Assam give views on tweaking party constitution

GUWAHATI: The Assam unit of the Congress held talks on proposed amendments to the party’s constitution as part of an exercise being held in all states at party vice president Rahul Gandhi' s behest.

The Congress is seeking views of its state units on whether the tenure of party membership should be reduced to three years from five years at present; whether common membership should be introduced for Congress and its affiliated organisations such as NSUI and Indian Youth Congress, in a departure from the three-tier membership system at present; and whether the presidents of the party' s state units should be allowed to contest elections.

The round table conference saw participation of the party' s MPs, former MPs, MLAs and members of its district units as well as frontal organisations such as Indian Youth Congress, Seva Dal and NSUI.

" Once all state units give their opinion, experts will analyse the whole thing and then the fate of the three provisions will be decided," said Anjan Dutta, president of Assam' s Pradesh Congress Committee.

The amendment to Congress constitution is likely by April this year, a party leader said.

Nearly 400 delegates in Assam gave their opinion on the three issues at the four-day programme held in Guwahati, where All India Congress Committee' s general secretary in charge of Assam, CP Joshi, and AICC secretary Avinash Pande were also present.

Meanwhile, Congress decided to contest all the seats in the sixth scheduled area of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in its forthcoming polls and said it is in talks with " almost all" social groups in the area.

" We will contest alone in all the constituencies in the BTC elections. We have received proposals for a pre-poll alliance, but we have not decided about it yet. The party has spoken to almost all social groups and different communities residing in BTC," said Dutta.

Elections to the 40-member BTC are likely to be held in April.

Bodoland People' s Front, which is in power in the BTC, had last year snapped ties with the Congress and pulled out its ministers from the Congress-led government in the state.